The Quiet Plains
by Metamotivation
Summary: At seventeen, Stan couldn't take Kenny seriously when he said: "You and me, we're gonna make something of ourselves, but we can do it our own way. Kyle and Cartman are a different story." A lot of things happened before Stan was seventeen and their world spun when Kyle decided to punch this one kid in the face. But the story's much more complicated than that. UPDATE
1. Introduction: A Brief Manner of Speech

**(UPDATE) Important note: New readers, please feel free to go ahead to read and possibly review :) But to those who have already read "A Brief Manner of Speech," further notes regarding this update can be found at the bottom of this chapter.**

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><p>The Quiet Plains<p>

_An Introduction: _A Brief Manner of Speech (_Guaranteed to Change the Jaded)_

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><p>At fifteen years old, during his sophomore year in Park County High School, Kyle lay with his back pressed into the downy softness of his mattress. His bedroom was quiet, like the darkened street outside his window. The silence only emphasized the vibration of his phone when he received a call—right on time.<p>

It was twenty past eleven.

Kyle glanced, for no particular reason, at the calendar hanging from his wall. "December" beamed at him in cheery Christmas colors. He had a basketball game on the fourteenth, three days from then.

He let his phone ring once before picking up.

"About time, fatass. I was beginning to think you died halfway through dinner. Like, you know, sometime between the fifth and tenth course. Either from indigestion or your utter lack of human feeling. Or maybe the realization that you're going to die alone."

"Hear this, Jew? That's the sound of me flipping you, your mom, and your non-existent Jewish god the big fat bird. Now, help me with my math. Jesus-bleeding-Christ, that teacher wants me raped in the ass."

This was a habit. Every night, averaging on over three hours, Eric and Kyle would talk over the phone. It wouldn't always be about homework. The ritual lasted through the months of November all the way up to March of sophomore year.

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><p>It was with a sense of lazy informality that Kenny McCormick one day implied, while in the throes of intoxicating contemplation, that South Park would never cease to surprise and disillusion him all at once. His tone carried the weightlessness of a young man who had little to lose. Yet his steel blue eyes taught Stan a different story: that the cycle of embitterment and hope-bringing in their town was a roller coaster ride that bore an eerie resemblance to a drug addiction. It was a hell you depended on to keep you sane, because the alternative was to live in a much less extraordinary life. Why be ordinary and carefree if you could be thrust into a disastrous jumble of events, events marred with karmic backlash—a phenomenon that seemed concentrated in the Colorado snow—and somehow feel the grace of Providence. Malevolent or benign, the touch of God was preferred over being godforsaken.<p>

It was after making these observations that Stan fully comprehended, with no real sense of urgency, the full effects of growing up with someone. Without the need to ask, Stan knew; Kenny understood just as well as he did that aging side by side inherently left you with a connection that ran deeper than the bonds of blood.

They were both seventeen at the time, seated at the back of the school gymnasium, and as they watched the sunset, both felt the reality of their high school graduation finally setting in.

In the future, as Stan stood up in smoky black box theaters, the very altar of his budding religion, he would sing whimsical lyrics about Murphy's Law tattooed into the brittle permafrost of home, and with a touch of self-deprecation, he would remember the conversation he had with Kenny at the age of seventeen. It was one that he would carry later on in life, coding phrases in his lyrics, and occasionally would mutter a line or two over a cup of java.

Kenny's words, if Stan cared to analyze them (and he did, while phrasing them in poetry and song), were most likely inspired years before they were even said.

Though the instigating incident was often not referenced (quite honestly, any mention of his high school heroics left Kyle flustered and defensive), it was with helpless acceptance that the four came to admit that their group dynamic took a significant turn in sophomore year—when Kyle's fist made contact with Jeremy Millicent's freckled face.

In response, the physical flinch that rippled down the hallway of Park County High School was one that landed Kyle in a level of fame teetering on the edge of infamy.

A single spiteful comment ignited hellfire in his green eyes.

Stan, Kenny, and Eric, all of who were at the scene, spotted the spark even before the flames were lit. Not a single one of them, mere inches away from Kyle, could stop his fist from flying in an arch of retribution. None of them knew—not even after Kyle's hard knuckles connected with Jeremy's face—that this singular event would continue to define the years laid out before them.

Even prior to that pivotal moment in their high school hallway, it was common knowledge that Kyle Broflovski did not hold Jeremy Millicent in high regard. The tension began, ironically, with a nonchalant comment from their basketball coach.

Mr. Richard Reynolds, a man with a ruddy, rubbery face, and a rotund belly, possessed a frequency of speech that far exceeded the breadth of his knowledge. And it was this fault (Mr. Richard Reynold's incapability to think before speaking) that first landed Jeremy Millicent in the unfortunate region of Kyle's resentment.

In the middle of an ordinary afternoon of basketball practice, Mr. Reynolds observed with lack of insight that Jeremy Millicent was pulling through the customary drill with remarkable speed and ease.

"Atta boy, Jer!" Mr. Reynolds called, his cheery, buoyant voice echoing in the high ceilings of the gymnasium. "Yer givin' Broflovski a run for his money."

It was with a hint of confusion that Jeremy responded with a hesitant, "Yes, sir," and continued to push off the floor, launching himself into a brisk pace. He remained oblivious to the malevolent gaze that Kyle managed to throw at him from the other end of the gym.

Mr. Reynolds was mistaken to assume that Jeremy quite suddenly turned into a phenomenal athlete withing the span of an afternoon. Coming in late due to a dentist appointment, Jeremy was halfway through his first lap, while the rest of the team was finishing their sixth or seventh. While the mistake was both apparent and unfortunate, the possible threat that Jeremy posed to his hard-earned MVP status was enough to push Kyle to outdo him first in basketball, but wounded pride seeped like hot poison into schoolwork and other extracurricular activities.

Innocent though he was, Jeremy Millicent, unwittingly similar to Kyle Broflovski in all the wrong regards, managed to take notice of the resentment directed at his person, most significantly during an afternoon in Social Studies class.

Upon handing in the first draft of their economics minor papers, Kyle sauntered with innate haughtiness by Jeremy's desk, proclaiming to no one in particular: "Resources belong to those who can afford them." This, clear to both Jeremy and Kyle, was a blatant counter-thesis to Jeremy's paper.

It was not in Jeremy's nature to submit to the passion of political science, nor was he known to actively participate in any sort of conflict, be it verbal, physical, mental, or emotional—usually, he was not the confrontational sort. But he dared to venture anyway, into the virgin grounds of political debate with Kyle Broflovski. Virgin to Jeremy, for he was completely unaware of Kyle's cutthroat approach to logic, and even more so unfortunate, he was unaware that Kyle frowned upon his very existence, feeble though it was.

It was without this very vital knowledge, that in response, Jeremy arched a black brow, following Kyle with his eyes as the boy took his seat not too far away; he took note of the way Kyle's lips were curled in a slight arch that was both regally intimidating and unsettling.

Kyle's arbitrary remark, overheard by all in the room—though both students and teacher pretended otherwise in lieu of uncensored eavesdropping—made sure to inform Jeremy in the simplest but most cutting way possible: "Your views are beneath mine, you socialist scum."

Jeremy Millicent was a stocky boy with dark, mousy hair, his skin liberally coated with amber freckles. He spoke in a slow alto; it left one with the impression that he deliberately took the time to mull over his words, when in reality he spoke with a natural languidness inherited from his mundane British father.

Jeremy was neither well liked nor did he live in infamy. He seemed rather happy to be living an obscure existence in a demographic that held popularity in high regard. He felt no compulsion to be noticed by his peers, which was apparent in the way he never pushed his opinions, but rather offered them with idle leniency that lacked any sense of self-importance.

However, as Social Studies class would later on prove, Jeremy Millicent had a secret vindictive streak large enough to warrant its own area code. His mulishness suggested a severe aversion to condescension, an aversion powerful enough to win him a reputation among his peers that refused to do him justice.

Anyone who has gone through the public system of education will tell you: it wouldn't matter if you saved an entire African village from starvation—you would remain a social leper if you even toe the line of the status quo. In Jeremy's case, challenging Kyle Broflovski was not only toeing said line, but was in and of itself very similar to tap-dancing on the line, as well as licking it, spitting on it, and driving a Ford F150 over it.

In comparison to Jeremy Millicent, who preferred to be kept in the cool shadows of social irrelevance, Kyle thrived in the tropical paradise of athletic and academic worship. Prior to his recruitment on the basketball team, Park County High School had forgotten what a city championship tasted like. Having played basketball since his later days in elementary, his dedication showed itself in his outstanding performance. His name was also constantly ranked among the top 10 honor students of his year.

Kyle was accustomed to pushing the limits of excellence, simultaneously giving off the impression that he did it effortlessly. Kyle worked hard and had all the success to show for it.

Kyle Broflovski did not settle for second best, and whether this was due to any sense of regal entitlement or an innate love for diligence, only Stan, Kenny, and Eric would be able to tell truthfully—but if asked, any of the three would give vague, blasé answers, such as Eric's rather unhelpful but characteristic: "It's the Jew in him. Kyle just can't stand to be a runner-up. That's what you get for being a Jew and getting knocked up in Jersey: Kyle 'Bad Ass Motherfucking' Broflovski."

Kyle demanded no less than the very best, in both himself and in others, a quality that Eric would frequently comment upon as being "more off-putting than endearing" (not always in such socially acceptable terms).

As a fitting combination, Kyle was prone to voicing his opinions with an entitled highhandedness inherited from his outspoken mother (he would deny it strongly if asked). Although he was cutting and adamant when establishing any sort of moral or ethical standard, his peers were left no room for disagreement because Kyle was unfortunately almost always right.

Naturally, when the students of Park County High were to decide on which side to take in the war of wounded pride (which arguably began when Kyle decided to get thesis-antagonistic with Jeremy during Social Studies) it was no surprise that Kyle Broflovski had most people siding with him. This, however, did not hint at any pretense of loyalty among childhood friends. It was merely a testament to the fact that human beings are predisposed to spot a winner, one who would stop at nothing short of victory. It didn't matter that Jeremy could have been more reasonable and justified, if one were to try and see the situation with any measure of sagacity. Kyle Broflovski, tall, athletic, intelligent, and in possession of an understated but imperial handsomeness, was born with the strong, however misguided, drive to succeed. And Jeremy Millicent, stocky, unremarkable, and unfortunate for inheriting his British father's slow drawl, never for a moment stood a fighting chance against Kyle, he who had a strong, innately passionate pace of speech, punctuated by unwavering eye contact with irises so green and down to earth that they enticed you to believe.

It was this very attribute that drove even Eric Cartman, Kyle's worst critic, to worship him with caution and self-loathing, a testament to the charisma of supreme self-importance. Even Kenny McCormick, whom Stan would say was the first person to ever truly stand up to Kyle's proud nature, would admit with no small amount of bitterness that Kyle had the power and allure of a political god.

No one, for even a moment, played the Underdog Vote, when it was so painfully clear from the very beginning that Jeremy had no hope of winning against Kyle's threatened ego. The thought of having someone as insignificant as Jeremy Millicent come close to his degree of excellence in an area he was best at—Kyle instinctively felt the urge to defend what he felt he'd rightfully earned.

The instigator of the conflict, Mr. Richard Reynolds, lives to this day in ignorant bliss, unaware of the spark of hatred caused by his careless comment on one ordinary afternoon. Had he taken the time to pay close attention during that particular basketball practice, Jeremy and Kyle might have found it in their hearts to become friends. _C'est la vie_, Eric Cartman would comment upon it years later with delighted irony, which would leave Kyle feeling a sentiment uncomfortably similar to shame and guilt.

Upon hearing Kyle's attack on socialism that unfortunate day in Social Studies, Jeremy, having put one-hundred-percent of his effort into his minor paper, felt a natural compulsion to defend his thesis: "Resources must be entrusted to the public; this will ensure the good use of such resources, promoting sustainability, benefiting in the long term the consumers, the environment, and eventually enlightening the shared ideology of a nation."

"Isn't that a little narrow?" Jeremy muttered slowly, glancing over his shoulder at Kyle. He began his tone, as he was accustomed to, with no tangible amount of haste or confidence.

With a haughty arch of his brow, Kyle leaned back in his seat, long torso stretched out with deceptive ease, a discreet gesture of irreverence. "It's not narrow at all, Jeremy. I wrote that resources belong to those who can afford them. I have good enough reason to."

To all who witnessed the beginnings of the conversation, particularly Stan, it was apparent that to rise to Kyle's baiting was a fool's endeavour, one that Jeremy took in the hapless obligation to stand up for a paper he took great pains to write.

"And that reason would be?" Jeremy asked, his drawl slower than usual.

Kyle's lips curved into a confident smirk, a sure sign of victory. "Think about it. If you were investing in a project, you wouldn't want your money to go to waste. Corporations who manage resources make sure to do it wisely. Good investments make good profit."

Visibly ruffled, Jeremy's speech slowed to a pace reminiscent of the fable of the tortoise, but this was one race he wouldn't win. "What about corporate accountability? If you're going too far to the right, people get lazy and take advantage, and you're left with the Gulf of Mexico all over again. Not _all _corporations are as wise as you seem to think they are."

"That's because you only ever hear about what goes wrong. Bad news makes more ratings than good." Kyle spoke briskly, coming aware of the stares of his peers. "Only a small percentage of private businesses make dumbass mistakes like that one. Besides, British Petroleum was never that credible to begin with, but they're only a stale scone in the international buffet table of the corporate world."

The national jab did not go unnoticed by anyone in the room, especially Jeremy, who, for what seemed like the first time in the history of his life, threw a scowl. The act of defiance did not fail to shock every soul present, but still lacked the conviction needed to throw Kyle off his high horse.

"Most Americans would beg to differ," Jeremy murmured, his speech slowing to a rather painful crawl.

"Economics is a powerful force, more powerful than the pretty ideals of socialism." Kyle's impassioned tone increased in pace and volume. "Bottom line is, no one can conceal anything in the 21st century anymore. Any corporation worth its salt would be able to recognize that social media and the press would be able to sniff out even a microscopic trace of injustice against human and environmental resources. The pressure of losing investors to bad press is enough to drive corporate accountability. None of that government involvement crap."

Eric Cartman would have been openly proud of that finishing blow, even as the general audience glanced at Jeremy's wounded reaction with reluctant sympathy. The fact of the matter was that Kyle had the conviction to make people believe in his own opinion as if it was of no less importance than an address from the president. Such confidence was impossible to overlook, and if placed right beside Jeremy's cowed socialist stance, there was no contest.

It would be later on during that day when Eric snickered with delight into Kyle's ear, "All that anti-socialism, anti-hippie talk was rather impressive, Kyle. You whipped that Frenchie like the little European bitch that he is. Are you sure you don't quote me in your sleep?"

To this, Kyle responded with cavalier impatience.

"I don't know why you're so surprised. What, you never thought I had it in me?"

"I knew it all along," Eric puffed with smug satisfaction next to Kyle on the bus. "I just never thought you'd be so damn convincing about it."

Eric Cartman's involvement in the conflict with Jeremy Millicent also lay rooted within that day in Social Studies class; after Kyle dealt the ruthless blow as he did, Eric quite painfully and liberally poured salt on Jeremy's wounds with a sharp guffaw that immediately earned him the full brunt of Jeremy's resentment.

In Jeremy's opinion, it was one thing to crush someone as coldly as Kyle did, but it was quite another to enable such ruthlessness.

It was this one mistaken chuckle from Eric Cartman that ignited a fiery malevolence within Jeremy's very soul.

To the general surprise of all in the room, Jeremy turned his unhappy brown eyes to Eric, who was standing next to Kyle's desk like a proud mother hen.

"You're a bad influence on him," Jeremy muttered slowly.

Scoffing, Eric placed his hand on Kyle's shoulder, failing to notice the way Kyle's entire body tensed instantaneously at Jeremy's words. "Just shut your mouth and admit defeat, Jeremy," Eric said with crude flippancy. "Kyle's got you by the balls. And I'll admit, I may have given him some sage political advice, but he raped your thesis like nobody's—"

"Shut up, Cartman," Kyle snapped, shrugging off Eric's hand. In cold silence, he leaned over a notebook on his desk and began scribbling furiously with a pen.

Stan and Kenny, who bore witness to the scene as if attending a public hanging, exchanged a glance. As the two of them watched Eric and Kyle from the back of the room, it was with a deeply rooted sense of dread that Kenny paid special attention to Eric.

Hazel eyes implored, unknowingly, for Kyle to look up.

The wistful gaze lasted no longer than a second, and with a huff, Eric sat down in his own desk next to Kyle, muttering darkly to himself.

After the dust settled, it was clear that Kyle was the victor of the rather confusing debate against Jeremy. The victory, however, seemed to be a bitter one.

Although Kyle's countenance visibly brightened for the rest of the afternoon, and while Eric seemed to forget about the brief exchange between them, Kenny couldn't shake the impression left by Eric's eyes, gazing at Kyle for an insignificant moment, but a moment longer than was appropriate.

Eric's look of wistfulness, confused at itself and yet no less powerful in its understated sadness, was a familiar one.

On more than one occasion, Kenny would see the look in Eric's eyes. It wouldn't be reflected in his posture, or the line of his back, or the curve of his thin lips. The quiet sentiment of longing, a whisper so small and quiet, could only be seen through the thick looking glass of childhood friendship.

Kenny saw it in Eric's eyes when Kyle laughed his firecracker laugh; when Kyle scored a three-point shot at a basketball game; when Kyle pointed out the solution to a Physics problem with straightforward ease; when Kyle was oddly quiet and contemplative, and when Kyle graced Eric with moments of genuine kindness, ones that continued to define the complexity of their connection.

The phenomenon was nothing new.

The only visible difference on that day, that fateful day in Social Studies class, was a spark of emotion in his hazel eyes, previously absent from Eric's familiar glance—vulnerable, shocking, and bright as the lights of New York City. Kenny, for fear of defining it, could only ever think to himself that Eric Cartman, in that small moment in time, looked like he was a small child dying of thirst.

The relationship between Eric and Kyle was a complex one, at least to people looking from the outside in. To the four of them, having grown up together made everything simple, crystal clear. That, however, did not mean that Eric's one-sided affection was a topic to be openly discussed—not even in prayers.

In their own unique ways, the four boys were aware of it, but back in those days none of them could say they were conscious of the knowledge. To be aware of it would eventually mean coming up with a definitive solution, a form of action that none of them were prepared for at the age of fifteen—nor were they prepared for it at sixteen or seventeen.

Kenny could see it in the special way Eric would glance at Kyle in his most brilliant, vulnerable moments, however brief and fleeting the emotions would last in Eric's eyes.

Stan noticed that during their bus rides home, Eric would always be the first on the transit every afternoon at three o'clock. As was customary, he saved three seats at the back of the bus, his backpack and books placed in respective seats. His backpack would always be on his right side, and he would set it down on the floor with unceremonious finesse as Kyle took the seat, saying with a smile, "Thanks, dude."

Kyle took note of the way Eric would always lean close to him when they played video games on lazy Sunday afternoons.

Eric held it in the deep confines of his subconscious, completely and utterly at the hands of his own affliction, but aware of it in a surreal state.

It was in the last minutes before sleep that every night, without fail, he would feel the impulse to reach for his phone and send Kyle a message, more often than not: "Did you do the homework?"

To which Kyle learned to respond eventually (after many repeated occasions, he learned that to ignore Eric would be to invite hundreds of messages, all somehow related to his Jewish ancestry, in his inbox come morning) with a nonchalant, "Yeah," or "We didn't have hw today, dumbass."

Neither could ever remember when the routine started, only when it ended with bitter abruptness. Nevertheless, texting about homework before bed became a habit, until one instance in November of sophomore year; after a rather tiring day at school, Eric immediately fell asleep after brushing his teeth.

After waiting for an hour and a half for the customary homework text, Kyle quite literally flew out of his bed in a frenzied burst of impatience and anxiety. Sprinting across his room, he leaped like a half-tamed beast onto his backpack. Kyle grappled with the various zippers and pulls, eventually finding his phone in one of the pockets. Fearing that he forgot to set it on vibrate, he unlocked his phone. He refused to acknowledge the gnawing pit of worry and disappointment in his gut when it was apparent that there were no new messages from Eric in his inbox.

Without hesitating, Kyle scrolled through his contacts list and upon finding the right number hit "Call" as he returned to his bed.

Eric jolted awake as he felt a vibration in his pants pocket, and the first thought that came to his mind was Kyle texting him: "No, there wasn't any hw today, dumbass."

Reaching into his jeans with sloppy movements of his fingers, the thought registered in his brain that it was odd for his phone to be vibrating several times if he was just receiving a text. Upon slipping the humming device from his pocket, Eric's sleep-addled brain realized belatedly, with no considerable amount of grace, that Kyle was calling him.

With clumsy fingers, Eric answered after the fourth ring. Holding his iPhone up to his ear, he mumbled with a yawn, " 'Sup, Jew."

It was with a sense of confusion and relief that Kyle received the standard greeting. Scowling, he shifted on his bed as he muttered in reply: "I was just checking to see if you were alive. We had math homework, by the way. Pages fifty-eight to sixty."

Eric grumbled. "Aw, crap. Really?"

"Yeah, really," Kyle responded, exasperated.

Casually ignoring the displeased tone, Eric fumbled in the darkness, realizing belatedly, with severe discomfort, that he was still in his jeans. "You know what the shittiest thing to wake up to is?" he mumbled into his phone as he attempted valiantly to slip off his pants with one hand.

"I dunno. Realizing you're still fat?"

Scowling, Eric managed to unbutton his pants—a small victory—while simultaneously coming to the conclusion that he was more annoyed by Kyle's complete lack of compassion rather than the inability of his attire to cooperate.

"Oh, he's got jokes. Well, fuck you, Kyle. You're a little bitch."

"This is why I don't call you," Kyle stated flippantly. "It's nothing but 'fuck you,' 'you're a bitch, Kyle,' or 'Kyle, stop being a Jew,' or 'quit Jewing me out, _Khal_.'"

Huffing, Eric swore underneath his breath (whether it was from the difficulty of getting out of his jeans or Kyle's typical ribbing, he couldn't bring himself to decide in his post-sleep haze). "And it's always fat jokes with you. 'You're fat, Cartman.' 'Cartman, why are you so fat?' 'Here's a gift card to Victoria's Secret—buy yourself a push-up bra so at least your moobs will be nicer to look at.'"

Kyle burst into a sharp guffaw. "That last one is gold. Who came up with it again?"

"You did. Douche. Hold on—I have to take off my pants."

"Oh. Okay." Kyle felt himself stutter, eyebrows sky high on his forehead.

As Eric tossed his phone on his pillow, standing beside his bed to change into pajamas, Kyle listened silently to the distant shuffling of clothing, unaware that his sudden impulse to call Eric that night would inevitably evolve into a routine, one they would both come to rely on in the future. But in the moment, Kyle only found himself preoccupied with searching for a witty remark to Eric's blasé allusion to nudity.

"You know," Kyle murmured casually as he heard Eric get back on the line. "I appreciate this. It's hard to be making the first move all the time."

Puzzled. Eric glanced toward the device pressed against his ear as if to give Kyle an inaudible but tangible sign of bewilderment. "What are you talking about?"

"Phone sex."

"Aw, _fuck _you, Kyle."

"Then why'd you strip, dumbass?"

"Because," Eric breathed in a flustered huff, "I fell asleep in my jeans, retard."

"Well, that's smart."

"You're a dick."

"And you suck."

It took a moment for the joke to register, but when it did, Eric burst out in hysterical guffaws, with Kyle following shortly after.

"Nice," Eric commented with a grin that Kyle could hear. "Solid joke."

There was a lull over the line, and in those moments, their thoughts diverged; Kyle waited for nothing in particular as he took in the pause. Eric, overcome with a sudden bought of curiosity, gave in to the question gnawing at his thoughts.

"So ... how is that?" he inquired, his tone as vague as his words.

It was no surprise to either of them when Kyle immediately followed Eric's train of thought without missing a beat.

"You mean, phone sex?"

"Yeah."

"Honestly? Pretty hot. But I guess it depends."

The knowledge of Kyle's clandestine activities was nothing new, but his forthcoming attitude held a natural surprise for Eric.

Overwhelmed with insatiable curiosity, Eric plowed on with his thoughts and questions. "Seriously? Like ... with who? And doesn't it get awkward? I mean, it's on the phone for Christ's sake. And it's _you_. Who would want to do it with _you_."

Kyle shrugged, staring up at his dark bedroom ceiling. "That senior, Jennifer Barber. And no—it won't get awkward if you just roll with it."

"Jennifer," Eric mumbled. "You could do better, Kyle. There are other hot chicks angling for you cock. Did you even buy her dinner first?"

"Screw you, Cartman. It's not like I'd go for someone who has no self-esteem. And Jennifer's nice. And smart." Kyle took a contemplative pause, unaware of the slight upturn of his lips, a gesture not visible in his tone. "Besides, we only ever did that kind of thing a couple of times. We don't talk anymore. We didn't really have anything in common."

"Jesus, Kyle. You get around."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Eric rolled his eyes, as if his statement should have been an explanation in and of itself. "We're not even halfway through sophomore year and you've been with, like, twenty chicks already—"

"Three, you asshole."

"—and you never actually dated any of them."

"That's because relationships take too much work," Kyle sighed. "Last year, Bebe was clingy and irrationally jealous, so I jumped from that ship before it even started sinking. I mean ... she's a nice friend and all, but people change when you date them."

Eric graced that one with a derisive snort. "Like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing?"

"Exactly. And Sierra was ... well, that just didn't work out. And Jennifer was nice and simple, and when I wanted to end it, she didn't pull any retarded shit on me, like the whole 'can we still be friends' crap. It was just a nice goodbye—no bullshit."

"Wow," Eric mumbled dismissively, shifting to lie down on his stomach. "Why the hell do so many people want to date you again? Despite the fact that you're emotionally unavailable as all fuck …" The last part was mumbled, and Eric wasn't certain Kyle heard him.

Surprised, Kyle paused to digest the thought. "How do you know that?"

"People talk," Eric responded vaguely, "and I hear things here and there."

"Like, which people?"

"You know that chick with the really nice rack? I think her name's Diana."

"The one in our English class?" Kyle's response was lightning-fast.

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Holy crap," Kyle muttered, his breath catching. "What'd she say?"

"I overheard her telling her friend that she wanted to ride your disco stick."

Initially bewildered in a completey flattered light, Kyle was in the middle of processing a response when he caught Eric's smug silence with a sensory organ he often referred to as a "Bullshit Meter."

"You're an asshole," Kyle swore vehemently. "You _really _had me going there for a second."

"Well, I'm sorry, Kyle, but that was way too easy." Eric cackled with utter lack of sympathy. "Every time Diana walks into class, I can practically _feel _your eyes on her tits."

"Hey, if everyone else is doing it—wait. How the hell do you know _I'm _staring?" Kyle spared no small amount of effort when concealing his naturally male interests in Diana Wachowska's very feminine endowments. He was immediately caught off guard in being found out in his very covert glances.

Eric shrugged and stated, as if it was the most natural thing in the world: "Your facial expression is always more interesting that a pair of gigantic milk sacs."

The pause that succeeded the straightforward confession was neither lengthy nor awkward. It held a profound sense of promise, one that said Eric and Kyle would explore, in their most private moments, the underlying implications of Eric's words. The conclusions they would later on reach were not subject to deep, obsessive analysis; it simmered, untouched, until the overwhelming truth behind it all came to a violent boil later on that year.

Kyle may or may not have been aware of the potential significance of the conversation, but the way in which he broke the silence indicated that in either any case he didn't give a damn.

"Well, whatever," he began slowly. "I'm more of an ass guy anyway."

This earned him a bought of hysterical guffaws from Eric.

Neither of them would be able to recall in the following days exactly how their phone conversation ended. Lost in the throes of sleepiness, Kyle slurred groggy words of good night, the previous thirty minutes of dialogue already forgotten in the deep haze of sleep. Eric, in a similar fate, mumbled a tired "See you on the bus tomorrow," and finally fell asleep at one in the morning, this time in his pajamas.

It would be three days later, on a rather slow Thursday night, that Kyle called Eric a second time, for an entirely different reason than the first; he had a limited amount of text messages he could send, and was fast approaching that limit, while he had free minutes on weekends and weeknights past six.

"Hey, Cartman," Kyle greeted as he lounged on his desk chair. "What are you up to?"

"I'm finishing up that stupid English project," Eric said briskly, having set his phone to speaker as he typed with the vigor of the last minute slacker.

"That was assigned two weeks ago."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't change the fact that it's due _tomorrow_."

"What it _should _change," Kyle began, exasperated, "is the fact that you keep slacking off. You're not helping yourself, Cartman."

"If you called to preach, then I suggest you take the Good News and shove it up your Jewish ass. I'm not in the mood, Kyle."

Sensing an authentic edge of anger in Eric's tone, one that if tested could result in weeks of tense bus rides and awkward lunch hours, Kyle opted to take a constructive approach.

"Are you close to being done?" he asked, tone neutral.

Eric scoffed, hammering backspace like a madman. "Not even."

"Well, I can edit your paper for you, if you want," Kyle offered with casual leniency. "That way, it won't sound as last-minute as it actually is."

"This is bullshit," Eric hissed before picking up on Kyle's words, preoccupied as he was with scanning over his document in disappointed haste. "I'm not gonna to be done for at least another two hours, Kyle."

"Well, it's—" Kyle glanced at his desk clock, "—a quarter to ten. Who cares? No teenager sleeps before twelve. Well ... no teenager with a computer, at any rate."

"What's the catch?" Eric asked, glancing down at his phone with automatic suspicion.

Kyle rolled his eyes as he removed his feet from where they were propped up on his desk. "There _is _no catch. Is it really so hard to believe that I just wanna help?"

"Well, you _are _a filthy Jew."

It was at this point when Kyle promptly decided that helping out a friend cum arch nemesis would not be worth putting up with Eric's lack of social graces. It was also at this point when he hung up.

Exactly two seconds later, Eric called back.

Arching his brows with a superior air of disdain, Kyle let his phone ring five times before answering.

"Ready to stop being a little bitch?"

"_Fine_. Just help me out here, Kyle."

For the next two hours, Eric and Kyle were able to focus long enough for Kyle to talk Eric through the process of Shakespearean theatre and plot.

By a quarter past twelve, Kyle was in the last stages of editing Eric's document on his own computer. Overwhelmed with the relief of finishing, Eric pivoted his desk chair from side to side, lost in thought. It was while he listened to the tapping of Kyle's keyboard through the phone when the silence gave way to his curiosity.

"Kyle, are you a virgin?"

Pausing in the middle of sentence reconstruction, Kyle let his shock subside like heavy precipitate in the lingering silence.

"Look, just because I've made out with a few girls doesn't mean I'm willing to let it get that far," Kyle spoke evenly, but his tone held a sharp edge, as if to tell Eric: You know I'm better than that.

For what was probably the first time in the history of their decade-long friendship, Eric failed to respond to Kyle's defense; in a strange way, he consented to it with a brief nod, one that Kyle couldn't see, and said, "You never just call to say 'hi.'"

"Oh, right. I was gonna invite you and the guys to hang out tomorrow after school."

"Another round of COD?"

"I was thinking Halo for this week."

"Meh, whatever. Get a PS3, you obsolete Jew."

"I'm still saving up, fatass. There, I finished editing your paper. I guarantee you at least a B-."

"Stingy Jew."

"You're welcome, Cartman. I gotta go now—got training early tomorrow."

"Guess you're not gonna be on the bus then. Oh, thank God. Praise merciful Jesus, I won't have to put up with the smell of brisket and sweaty lamb."

"Yeah, and for once you're gonna have room for your big fat ass."

"Shut UP, Kyle."

The routine began with that first phone call, and in the days that followed since then, Kyle and Eric often found their midnight hours preoccupied with idle talk over the phone. It became a pattern that at least once, every time they spoke in this manner, Eric would pose a rather personal question, and Kyle would answer with ease enable by years of friendship.

Within the months that they exercised this ritual, Eric learned a number of interesting facts about Kyle: he really did prefer a rocking bum to a set of D-cup breasts; as much as Kyle liked to fool around, he absolutely refused to do it with someone he could label as "stupid" ("Stupid girls aren't that fun," he commented once, at eleven on a Wednesday night. "They just moan and lie there, and it's boring. Don't ever go for a stupid chick—unless you want a make-out session like a crappy porno."); Kyle only ever got to third base (with who, he would not disclose); the longest relationship he ever had was over the summer of that year, with a girl named Haley, whom he shared a glorious make-out session with on a park bench. Above all, Eric discovered, without being told, that Kyle Broflovski was a true romantic.

It would be on one December night when Eric asked, "Which girl is the most special to you?" and got more than he asked for when Kyle replied: "Cartman, they're all special for their own reasons, even if things might not have ended well. I know that Gabrielle is special because she's the first girl who ever gave me a handmade birthday card. Kasia is special because she got me to rock out at that one music show, and that's one night I won't forget. Sierra is special because she let me teach her how to skate, and even though she sucked she was always a good sport about that sort of thing. Bebe's beautiful. Holy shit, she turned out gorgeous. And she's also great at being straightforward, and fun, and ... she has the best smile. Jennifer's special because she's one of the simplest people I have ever met, and even though back then we would just lie on her bed sometimes and we wouldn't talk, that was better than anything I ever had with anyone else.

"I wouldn't forget any of them."

Eric could remember replying with flippant, detached comments, to which Kyle grunted and said, "You can't tell me you expected any less."

In the long hours after that particular conversation, Eric lay awake and thought to himself that he might not know Kyle at all, but maybe he knew Kyle best. Knowing that despite any tension or bad blood, Kyle could still overlook any negativity and see right into the heart of a person's worth, see the very reason to remember—on that December night, the thought gave Eric hope.

Instinctively, he knew that Stan was special to Kyle because Kyle felt a filial bond between them that surpassed the diverging paths they would later on take in the future. Kenny was special because in true moments of duress, he reminded Kyle that humility would benefit him in the long run, a lesson that Kyle would come to understand in later years with a silent but profound sense of gratitude.

Eric knew he was special to Kyle because from November to March of sophomore year, Kyle would call him, and for no particular reason, they would talk until one in the morning.

Eric knew he was special because on one obscure November afternoon, Kyle would rise to his defense against a snide comment from Jeremy Millicent.

After the brief, bitter debate between Kyle and Jeremy in Social Studies (which happened some time in the middle of October), the tension amidst the two only grew in severity.

Coming aware of Kyle's dislike of him, Jeremy failed to comprehend why or how he came to earn such resentment. The whole ordeal led him to believe that Kyle was a narrow-minded prick who despised people on principle, if he thought they had opinions of less than exemplary status. Kyle, on the other hand, believed Jeremy to be overreaching, pretentious, and conceited. It was due to their complete lack of understanding towards one another (or rather, their unwillingness to communicate like the educated individuals they believed themselves to be) that the volatile foundations were set for an animosity that failed to apologize and forgive.

Through underhanded and sometimes blatant acts of superiority, Kyle and Jeremy would attempt to outdo each other both in the classroom and in other social areas—in their more juvenile moods, both would exchange derogatory comments in the school cafeteria, which would earn them ill-tempered moods in the hours that followed.

Once, in early November, Jeremy happened to wander far too close to Kyle's cafeteria table during lunch hour, a mistake he did not immediately take note of. Upon spotting Kyle's auburn mane of curls, Jeremy scowled and strolled past, muttering darkly at his lunch tray, "High-handed, arrogant prick."

Kyle's shoulders stiffened in his seat upon catching the familiar slow drawl that he came to associate with overreaching, pretentious British faggots.

Whipping around with a dark glower, Kyle barked at Jeremy's retreating figure:

"Say that to my _face_."

Jeremy slowed to a halt in his tracks, and for a moment—a moment that everybody witnessed with carnivorous anticipation—he remained standing with his back turned to Kyle.

The ultimate backhand was delivered when Jeremy glanced over his shoulder, looked Kyle dead in the eye and muttered in fluent French: _"Fuck you, and fuck your mother."_

It became painfully obvious in that moment, with one glance at Kyle's barely restrained look of confusion, that Jeremy had one up on Kyle in the area of linguistics.

It was with a silent sense of smug satisfaction that Jeremy made his exit, refusing to give Kyle an opportunity to continue the crude exchange.

When Jeremy was out of sight, Eric took the liberty of translating the French to Kyle, watching with glee as his expression darkened ominously.

Later on in the day, as Eric and Kyle indulged in one of their nightly phone calls, Eric asked Kyle, in words that made up for their lack of grace with an abundance of insight: "What the hell's the deal with that Jeremy kid? Even I haven't gotten a rise like that from you in years."

Kyle responded tersely.

"He's just a little asshole. Let's not talk about it."

The fatal truth that he refused to speak: Kyle's resentment ran as deep as that day in Social Studies class, when Jeremy looked at Eric with displeased brown eyes, saying words that refused to leave Kyle's conscience:

_"You're a bad influence on him."__  
><em>  
>Although Kyle at the time refused to acknowledge the statement with any sense of urgency, he often found himself listening to Eric speak over the phone, wondering with tension and anxiety, "Am I really as bad?"<p>

Kyle became increasingly aware of the anxiety caused by this notion, and with each passing day, the stress heightened; yet he refused to speak of it to anyone.

Kyle often found himself associating his dislike for Jeremy with his own corroding sense of judgement. The fear of turning into a moral degenerate like Eric Cartman was the pivotal element that ultimately pushed Kyle onto the final frontier of his downward spiral. The more Kyle became aware of the dreaded possibility that Jeremy may have been right, the more he felt the urge to deny it; and he denied it by expressing, no holds barred, that he held Jeremy Millicent in the lowest regard possible.

After the French "kiss my ass" in the cafeteria, it became Kyle's sole desire to get even.

A few days after the incident in the cafeteria, Jeremy came back to school after suffering from a minor but troublesome cold. His return was greeted with frigid silence; upon walking into Social Studies class with a note from his mother and the last traces of the sniffles, Jeremy was informed by his teacher that a group project had been assigned while he was away.

It was with dread and hot impatience that he discovered his usual partners riding the Team Broflovski bandwagon. Were Kyle a different person, Jeremy would have given him the benefit of the doubt. But Kyle almost always preferred to work alone, or with Stan or Eric. This time, he unabashedly held the reigns, with Jeremy's friends Joseph Isaac, Lisa Hoang, and Wendel No-One-Can-Ever-Get-His-Last-Name-Right tagging along for the merry sleigh ride of blatant sabotage. Jeremy's usual partners were gathered around Kyle's desk and were eagerly bobbing their heads up and down in agreement as Kyle explained something on his laptop monitor.

Expression dark, Jeremy glanced around the room, taking note that there was a limit of four people per group, no exceptions. His eyes landed on a small, unproductive huddle in the back, and his heart sank as far as the soles of his feet when he realized that the only group of three consisted of Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick.

Praying for all he was worth to any deity that would grant him mercy, Jeremy slowly approached the back of the room, his backpack feeling twice as heavy on his shoulders. Upon reaching the huddle of three, he turned to Stan, who was the first to take notice of his arrival.

"D'you mind if I join your group?" Jeremy asked, pointedly looking at Stan, imploring for sympathy with his eyes.

Hesitantly, Stan moved to speak, but Eric beat him to the punch. Scoffing, he frowned up at Jeremy from his seat.

"Forget it, Frenchie. Find your own group."

Jeremy resolutely refused to make eye contact with Eric, but the small twitch at the corner of his lip indicated to all of them that he heard the comment and was none too pleased. Holding his gaze with Stan, Jeremy persisted.

"So … d'you need another person?"

"We're good, _thanks_," Eric gritted out, glaring. "Jesus, you're French _and _deaf. God damn, someone got the short end of the genetic stick."

From the corner of his eye, Stan managed to catch sight of Jeremy clenching his fist. In hindsight, Stan thought with painful honesty, he should have skipped Social Studies, instead of skipping Music to do a Math assignment in the back of a hallway closet. That way, he would have gotten work done as well as being able to avoid dealing with his guilty conscience. As compassionate as Stan believed himself to be, he was also tired, sleep-deprived, and quite frankly did not have enough energy to be sympathetic to Jeremy's plight. Nor did he want to deal with Kyle's wrath, a definite consequence if he were to fraternize with Public Enemy Number One.

So Stan managed an indifferent shrug and an inaudible comment underneath his breath. He looked away from Jeremy's imploring brown eyes and focused with no real interest on the assignment laid out before him.

And so it was that Jeremy came to do the Social Studies group project alone.

It was with a stroke of wicked irony that he came to earn the highest grade in class; his peers received his presentation on worldview with hidden awe and blatant surprise. Kyle in particular had to grudgingly admit that Jeremy did a bang up job—those kinds of graphics could not be denied, especially not by someone like Kyle who knew technology and programming like the back of his hand.

The incident came as a blessing in disguise; Jeremy came to discover that remaining in the group standard was holding him back, and from then on decided to fly solo. It would be thanks to Kyle's unforgiving prejudice that Jeremy came to develop, through sheer vindictive force, a prowess in digital presentations. Later on in life, this skill would aid Jeremy in commandeering an advertising company in the United Kingdom. With his marketing knowledge, he would be making a 6-digit salary every year since.

In high school however, his success was met with skeptical brows and was soon forgotten as a small, irrelevant victory.

The bitterness of being excluded and abandoned still stung in the weeks that followed, and the tension could be felt every time Jeremy and Kyle would make eye contact in the halls. It was customary for the two to be walking in different directions after fourth period, Jeremy coming from his honors English class, which was in the east, and Kyle coming from his Math class, which was in the west. Their fifth period classes were located in the same hallway, and more often than not, they would cross paths.

The students who were unfortunate enough to witness the silent "Go to the deepest circle of hell" telepathic exchanges between Kyle and Jeremy would swear, under oath, that the temperatures in the hallway dropped by double-digit degrees—in Celsius.

It was nearing the end of November when their conflict came to a head.

Stan, Eric, and Kenny, all of whom had the same General Sciences class in fourth period, decided to take a detour and stop by Kyle's Math class so that they could all walk to fifth period together.

Upon arriving at their destination just as the first bell rang, the three immediately greeted Kyle with caution as he exited his classroom, a deep scowl causing his fair features to turn gloomy.

By way of a very curt and very tense explanation at the bus stop that morning, Kyle informed his friends that the be-all, end-all of every child-parent argument since the beginning of time was the source of his transparent rage.

The night before, muffled screams of impassioned rage could be heard all over the south of the county.

When Mr. Randy Marsh poked his head out of his front door to listen to the hubbub, his wife Sharon inquired briefly from the kitchen: "What is it, Randy?" Shutting the front door as quickly as he opened it, Randy shrugged as he returned to the living room couch where his last can of beer awaited him faithfully. "Seems like Shiela's pissed off," he explained. "Something about disrespect."

Sheila Broflovski, mother to Kyle and every bit of the old Jewish hen that her son proclaimed her to be (only under dark muttered breaths), had indeed screamed shrilly and nasally about her son's degrading sense of respect in a voice heard by both heaven and hell.

The argument started with a simple order: "Kyle, clear the dishwasher, please, bubbe. Thank you."

Kyle, seated in the living room typing away at his laptop, heard his mother's call from the kitchen. Sensing no implicit haste in her tone, Kyle responded, "In a minute, ma. I'm just finishing up an assignment."

"NOW, Kyle," Sheila clucked. "It's only going to take you a few minutes."

"Just let me finish. I'm almost done here."

"Kyle, you listen to me this very instant and do as you're told."

Kyle rolled his eyes. In his mind, he found himself thinking that his mother needed to get her priorities straight. Dishes could wait after he was done typing out his final essay paragraph.

"Ma, would you quit nagging me? I said I'm almost done. Jesus Christ."

It was with a cold pause that Sheila took in her son's response. Kyle, often so obedient and polite, although at times tenacious, surprised her with his outright crude flippancy. Stopping in the middle of her dinner preparations, Sheila marched into the living room, righteous purpose burning haste into her heels.

As soon as Kyle sensed his enraged mother's presence, he knew immediately that he said the wrong thing. On any other day, he would have found it in him to apologize and let the whole ordeal slide without further mishap. Any confrontation involving his mother was bound to be drawn-out and painful—an emotional and mental crucifixion. But at the time, Kyle refused to acknowledge his misstep, and insisted righteously in his own mind: "Just keep your head cool. You didn't do anything wrong, so she has no damn right to be pissed."

As Sheila chastised her son for his behavior, Kyle found himself on the defensive, and what could have started out as a civilized conversation very quickly inflamed itself and turned into a full fledged screaming marathon. Soon it turned legendary, because all within a five-mile radius could hear the screams.

Kyle kept insisting on his own reasoning ("It's just dishes, for Christ's sake! It can WAIT five goddamn minutes,") while Sheila seemed intent on instilling good manners in her offspring by way of screaming shrill sentences into Kyle's ears.

The debacle ended with Kyle's enraged exit up the stairs, his bedroom door slamming shut behind him with booming finality. He went to bed angry, and woke with the same feeling lingering bitter and cold in his chest.

Stan didn't have need for a lengthy explanation the following morning; going by the very brief account from his dad the night before, it wasn't difficult to piece together the story on his own.

Kenny and Eric, upon hearing Kyle's terse explanation at the bus stop and seeing firsthand the dark expression that he wore, knew instantly that it would be a day of walking on eggshells.

That following afternoon, as the boys were walking with Kyle to fifth period, Eric in particular seemed to take to heart Kyle's stony silence. The energy around him was electric and cold; instinctively, Eric felt that just about anything could set Kyle off, in a manner so explosive, even he didn't want to cause it. Taking a moment of silence to gauge Kyle's expression once more, Eric then glanced at Stan and Kenny, observing them immersed in their own conversation. It seemed to be an unspoken consensus to leave Kyle be, at least until his rage was well below simmering.

Cautiously, Eric nudged Kyle's elbow, watching as the distant look in his green eyes shifted without haste to alert themselves to the present surroundings; the metamorphosis was innately regal, filled with Kyle's inherent refinement.

Kyle met his gaze and without words and only the slightest adjustment of his lips managed to ask Eric one essential question.

"Chin up, Jew," muttered Eric. "Your nose is dragging on the floor." Spoken so casually, the words lacked the fundamental mockery that both Kyle and Eric came to associate with their interactions. Although the words were crude, they lacked jagged barbs of malice, but in the same vein were not quite sincere enough to imply that Eric cared. Eric's tone lay in a gray area between the neigboring borders of sympathy and insolence, and Kyle wasn't quite sure whether to feel offended or comforted.

He settled for the latter, and offered Eric a small, strained smile, muttering just loud enough for only Eric to hear, "I would, you know, if you'd do me the same courtesy by not dragging shit trails all over the floor with that big fat ass of yours."

Eric scoffed and glared. "Well, excuse the fuck outta me. At least then we'd never get lost. Ain't no Hansel and Gretel bread crumbs up in this shit."

"Yeah. If we had any bread to eat, you'd inhale it all."

"Have some fucking class, Kyle. Only if it's crazy bread from Little Caesar's."

That, for some reason, made Kyle break out into a guffaw, genuine and sudden, like a firecracker.

The moment was minuscule and almost irrelevant, if not for the very brief, lightning-fast response in Eric's hazel eyes, one that held astonishing warmth, suggesting a multitude of forbidden sentiments. Kenny caught sight of it, as did Stan, and in the same brief moment—all of half a second—both acknowledged that without even a tangible trace of effort, Eric was able to wade past the storm of Kyle's anger.

Instead of relief, Kyle's firecracker laugh was met as an omen of foreboding.

Neither Stan nor Kenny was able to address their misgivings, solely because of a lifetime of friendship. And therein lay the irony of the situation: Unspoken protocol dictated that such things were not to be discussed. There was no outline, no standard operating procedure, that could guide any of them in this gray area of their group dynamic. One simply did not bring up that every time Kyle handed Eric his chocolate cupcake during lunch (saying that he didn't want it, although it was always a deliberate purchase), Eric would look at Kyle with an expression achingly close to appreciation. Kenny buried irrelevant thoughts (in his mind at the time, yes, they were irrelevant), such as the fact that Eric always sat beside Kyle everywhere they went. In the same way, he disregarded the fact that Eric had a knack for nagging Kyle to walk home with him everyday, insisting that in the time it took to walk all the way down the street, the train would have passed at exactly the right time; then they would be able to catch sight of the epic vandalism that they committed upon it in their junior high days.

"Kings of everything this side of the tracks," car number 32 boasted in white spray paint. Since the train was old and ran through the middle of nowhere, no one gave a damn that two young boys, drunk on the high of their juvenile rebellion, had made their mark on the shoddiest lone landmark within south of the county. And so their mark came to remain untouched.

Whenever Kyle wasn't busy with sports or other extracurricular activities, he would walk with Eric down the street and sit on the front steps of a familiar green house, one that had faded sidings, a rickety rusty gutter, and was flanked on either side by an aging wooden fence that seemed to be letting in more than it kept out.

The two would sit on the Cartmans' front steps and watched as their mark sped by in a white blur, knowing exactly where and when to look, just as the train rumbled by on its tracks down the street, separating South Park from its ghetto.

With a vigor that only made itself new each time they watched the train, Eric and Kyle would often recall the day that they did it: during a Saturday in early spring of eighth grade, at half-past noon.

They had been searching for something to do while Stan was away at his guitar lessons and Kenny was having one of his usual absences. Just underneath the gray April sky, the ground was muddy and cool from the melted snow, and smelled like fresh spring grass and mountain water. They trudged through a back alley drive, one that neared the field where the cargo station resided; it resembled a rusty old warehouse in the distance.

As they walked behind the houses that had their backyard garages facing the field, the idea impressed itself upon Eric that the two of them should make a memory together.

Kyle met the proposition with disbelief. "That sounds incredibly gay," he stated bluntly.

"_You're _incredibly gay, Jew. So it only seems fitting."

Grumbling as he trotted along, Kyle watched as Eric spotted an open garage along the alley they traversed. He watched with only mild interest as Eric snagged a can of spray paint from one of the cardboard boxes inside and announced as if Kyle cared to hear, "Let's fuck shit up."

Merely following along in his boredom, Kyle felt surprised at himself when he grabbed Eric's arm, stopping him from assaulting the parked Mercedes-Benz with aerosol and Chinese-white glory.

"Fuck that, dude," Kyle scoffed. But with a twinkle in his eyes, he added, "I have a better idea."

Grumbling and whining his protests, Eric followed Kyle as he sprinted to the cargo station. Sneaking in from the large warehouse gateway, Kyle hopped up onto a loading platform from the railway level. Upon Kyle's orders of, "Don't look yet. And tell me what time it is," Eric scoffed and complained under his breath, but muttered in response, "It's twelve-twenty. What the hell are you doing? I was just about to cause at least five thousand in paint job expenses. You can't top my badassery, Kyle."

Kyle ignored him and grinned to himself, muttering something along the lines of, "That gives us ten minutes."

That piqued Eric's interest.

He gazed at where Kyle was perched on the loading platform, watching as he imprinted white words that Eric had yet to see, on a train car numbered 32.

"Ten minutes?" asked Eric. "Ten minutes for what?"

Kyle chucked the spray paint can at a personnel booth.

Both watched at it spun in arch of destruction.

With a deafening crash, it broke the booth window. Glass flew every which way, glittering in the noon sunlight.

Someone called out from within the warehouse.

"Shit—GODDAMN KIDS."

"RUN!"

Kyle leaped off the platform. Without missing a step, he broke out into a full Olympian sprint. Eric, miraculously, managed to be within ten strides of Kyle as he ran, angry voices shouting and cursing at his heels.

They sped out of the warehouse gates and lost their pursuers as Kyle weaved into a maze of neighborhood streets and alleys. Eric felt blood pounding in his ears as he followed, but in the heat of the moment failed to question Kyle's burst of insanity.

Soon, Eric found himself in front of his house, panting and heaving, lungs on fire, sweat growing cold on his brow.

Kyle panted next to him, grinning from ear to ear.

The distant rumble of the train weaved itself into the rusty metal of the railroad tracks, vibrations rippling from the steel into the ground beneath their feet.

"Watch for it," Kyle said, pointing down the street as the train sped by.

Eric, his knees giving out, collapsed backwards into the muddy grass of his front lawn, not caring that cold water from the melted snow seeped into his jacket almost instantly. He gazed at the upside down image of the old train and saw a streak of white fly by.

When the train sped out of sight and the din of the wheels grew lower and softer, Eric glanced at Kyle with a blank expression from where he lay on the ground.

" 'Kings of everything this side of the tracks.'" He stared at Kyle's expression of pride. "Seriously? You went with that?"

Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, dude. We own this place now."

"Why the fuck'd you chuck the can?"

"How else would I get you to run?"

Eric kicked mud into Kyle's face.

The "train spotting" then evolved into a ritual, and despite Kyle's underhanded tactic, Eric never gave him crap for it again. The two then recounted the event to Kenny and Stan the day after. The enthusiasm in Eric's voice, if possible, was outshone by a subtle fleeting glance at Kyle. Kenny noted to himself that Eric looked almost reverent. Stan couldn't see a reason to care, at the time, about the veiled worship in Eric's eyes. But he found himself unable to tear his gaze away when he was met with the very same expression almost two years later—the day after Kyle's phenomenal spat with his mother—just as Kyle laughed his firecracker laugh and Eric held a look of warmth in his eyes as a response. The thick looking glass of friendship proved once again to be an inconvenience, as Stan and Kenny were confronted with forbidden knowledge, knowledge that they themselves swore subconsciously would not leave the holy temples of their thoughts.

The same uncertain discretion, however, could not be said of Jeremy Millicent. He had no knowledge of the unspoken law that Eric Cartman's affliction should not and would never be manifested in words. Nor was Jeremy explicitly aware that an affliction even existed to begin with. But that day, as he walked towards the group of four boys from the opposite end of the hallway after fourth period, he caught a glimpse of what Stan and Kenny weren't brave enough to speak of. He became aware, not for the first time, that Eric Cartman had a unique effect on Kyle Broflovski. And that fateful day would not be the first time he exploited the knowledge.

Jeremy would never forget the singular moment when Kyle was knocked off his high horse, that one day in Social Studies class, when Jeremy went out on a limb and said to Eric with disappointed brown eyes, "You're a bad influence on him."

He marvelled at the transformation of Kyle's face—suddenly clumsy and distressed, when Kyle often held a regal, confident bearing. Green eyes then regarded Jeremy with resentment; he knew immediately that Kyle resisted the feeling of vulnerability he felt, yet could not have a prayer to control it. The resentment in those green eyes evolved into a look of outright shame and self-loathing—it was a moment that ceased to leave Jeremy's thoughts. Since then, he held the underlying suspicion that whatever existed between Kyle and Eric had the potential to undo his rival.

Jeremy wasn't aware—could not possibly be aware—that his conclusion had more than enough power to shake Kyle, but also had the earth-shattering capability to disrupt a lifetime of friendship.

Jeremy neared the group of four, unable to discern that within the span of a few minutes, a moment would happen, a moment that would continue to define the lives of Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Eric well into the days when they wouldn't see each other for months on end, in a time when childhood remained a thing of the past.

All it took was for one glimpse, by someone looking from the outside in, a stranger seeing what all four of them knew but didn't speak for fear of treading into the unknown and untouched.

Jeremy sneered at Kyle as they closed in on each other. But to everyone's surprise he shifted his melancholy gaze to Eric. Empowered by a renewed sense of vindication—he could sense it in his bones; Kyle tensed the very moment Jeremy averted his attention—all his resentment rose to the forefront of his assault.

Jeremy drawled slowly, as per usual, "I have no idea what Kyle sees in you. You're nothing but poison to him."

It was revealed the hard way that Kyle had yet to abandon the rage he'd felt throughout the day. The unexpected comment brought to surface the cold feeling of anger he awoke with that morning.

Stan saw it coming even before Kyle moved. He saw the spark of rage in his eyes, the tensing of his shoulders. In the same quick instance, Kyle's clenched fist swung forward in one fluid motion.

There was a sickening crack and a dull thud.

Jeremy landed backwards on the floor.

The hallway was enveloped in silence.

Everyone watched as Jeremy coughed, blood dribbling down his chin from where he clutched his broken nose.

Kyle stood over him in stony silence. His friends watched, numb with shock.

"Don't talk as if you know me." Kyle's voice was unrecognizable in its frigidness. "And DON'T you ever speak to him like that again."

Above the muffled shouts of approaching teachers and the deafening whispers of their fellow classmates, Kenny and Stan watched, frozen, as Kyle let himself be escorted to the Principal's office without a fuss. They observed one of the teachers inspecting Jeremy on the floor, and continued to watch as he was led to the infirmary. None of it registered clearly. Both were only aware of Eric standing motionless in a similar stunned stupor. Eric never took his eyes off Kyle's retreating figure, not even as he disappeared down the hallway.

"Holy fucking shit," he whispered.

Stan and Kenny knew then, from the breathlessness of his words and the paralyzed fear in his hazel eyes, that Eric Cartman was in love with Kyle Broflovski.

* * *

><p>Jeremy didn't feel the pain or the humiliation as a teacher bombarded him with questions and demands. He sat unmoving on the infirmary bed, letting the school nurse attend to his broken nose.<p>

"Tell me again what happened, son."

"There's not much to tell, Mr. Meyer: I said something to Eric Cartman. Then Broflovski punched me."

"What did you say to the Cartman kid?"

"Basically … that he's a bad influence on Kyle."

"Then Broflovski punched you? Just like that?"

"Yes, Mr. Meyer."

"Well, if that ain't the queerest thing. That's not like Broflovski at all."

* * *

><p>Kyle was seated alone, in front the Principal's desk, in one of two comfortably upholstered chairs. The thought occurred to him that the chairs were designed for situations just like this; they dared you to sink into the soft cushions, let down your guard, fail to prepare for the crucifixion to come.<p>

A glance at the wall clock by the door told him that his wait was almost up. The drive to the school took approximately ten minutes from South Park. The school secretary called seven minutes ago. The bells might as well start tolling for his funeral.

Three minutes passed by in three seconds.

Kyle heard his mother's voice from the secretary's desk outside the office.

He felt the roller-coaster sensation of his stomach dropping all the way to the soles of his feet.

"Mrs. Broflovski, Mr. Bowman will be seeing you in a few minutes, he just needs to—"

"Well, I'm sure his business needs attending to. In the mean time, I would like a word with my son."

"... Of course. He's waiting in Mr. Bowman's office."

Kyle's heart thundered in his chest.

The office door swung open. With humble resolve, he met his mother's eyes. So identical to his own.

Sheila's lips, pressed in a fine line, did not open to say a word. She simply turned to close the door, then in silence made her way to sit down next to Kyle.

They sat together like that for a few moments, indulging in the privacy of their own thoughts.

In hushed tones, Sheila spoke first, "Now, I don't know why this has happened, Kyle. But I told myself that you would have a good explanation for this."

Kyle nodded. He didn't make eye contact. His hands felt cold.

"Well, then. I'm waiting."

Kyle felt the first nail sinking into his palm, straight into the wooden cross of his demise.

His mouth felt dry.

"That kid, Jeremy—he just said things, and it made me snap. I wasn't thinking."

"That doesn't explain anything, Kyle," said Sheila, her tone sharp.

"Fine. He insulted a friend of mine. I just felt like it was uncalled for—"

"So you broke his nose."

Frigid silence.

"Listen, Kyle. Sweetheart … I know we quarrelled last night. I know you've been angry with me, and I'm sorry if you're still angry. But I never wished for you to take it out like this."

"It's not that, ma … I'm not mad anymore, I swear. And I'm sorry about last night. But what happened today is different. Jeremy was just being a little bastard—"

"LANGUAGE, Kyle."

"Sorry. He was … whatever. What he said wasn't cool."

"I see. Well … you know you must apologize, Kyle, and you will _have _to mean it. Otherwise I'll think twice about getting you off the hook."

"Ma, what—"

"I won't have this on your permanent record, Kyle. Now act penitent. It'll only help me."

* * *

><p>Kyle picked up his phone, answering the incoming call, knowing who it was on the other end even before he got a good look at his caller ID.<p>

"So, how much jail time are you getting?"

"I'm grounded for a month," Kyle grumbled, rubbing his eyes as he lay atop of his mattress. His room was covered in darkness, and yet for the past three hours, he failed to get any sleep. The time was likely somewhere between one to twelve.

"Shit, Kyle," murmured Eric. "You've got some serious balls taking out that kid's nose. How in the fucking world did you not get suspended?"

Frowning, Kyle felt himself growing uncomfortable. "The public school system is flawed, Cartman. All it took was for my mom to talk to the principal for a few minutes, and she convinced him to let me off with a warning."

"Goddamn, can you get your mom to vouch for me next time I vandalise—I mean … _redecorate_—the art room? Because I swear to Jesus, Mrs. Ambramowski can be such a fucking Jew. 'It's called public art,' I explained to her, but the cuntwhore wouldn't have it. Anyway, I'm surprised your mom didn't eat your face off, considering how you handed her your sass last night—"

"Can we talk about something else? Trust me, there isn't anything you can say that my mother hasn't already said."

"How about going in for some anger management classes, Jew? I haven't seen you blow a gasket like that since I stole all your boxers that one time and threw them in the pond."

"I do NOT need anger management classes. You, however, need to take a course on how not to be such a phenomenal douche bag."

"Wow, Kyle. Please don't project your uncontrollable rage unto me. It's actually really offending and pathetic."

"You have no fucking soul."

Kyle's tone was weary, his voice quiet.

"I stood up for your stupid fucking dickwipe self and all you do is fucking … rib me. Jesus, can you please just accept, _for once_, that you're grateful? I'm tired tonight, Cartman, and I don't wanna play games. Here, let me make it easier on you: You're welcome. I'd beat down any dick who talks shit about you any day, even though they might possibly be right."

There was a long pause on the line.

"Thanks," Eric mumbled, his voice so small that Kyle may have never heard him at all. "You're still a fucking Jew."

"So what? You're still a fatass son of a bitch. What's your point?"

"My point is, this changes nothing."

"Damn right it doesn't. But a little gratitude is nice. Especially since my ass is in some serious shit right now."

"I didn't ask for your help," Eric snapped.

"You might as well have, what with the look you had on your face."

"What fucking LOOK?"

"Oh, I don't know. You looked like someone just wrecked your mother. Trust me, when you looked that hurt, there was no way I was going to hold back."

"Lying fuck—Well, whatever—You're still a filthy, greedy, Christ-killing Jew—"

"Good night, fatass."

"Fuck off, Kyle."

"Oh, and Cartman?"

"What—for fuck's sake, WHAT?"

"Sorry I couldn't watch the train with you today."

"I didn't go to fucking watch it anyway."

Cartman hung up the phone. He'd lied, and for once he knew it was obvious. Neither he nor Kyle carried any pretenses; no one brought it up again.

* * *

><p>It would be due to the incident with Jeremy, that during the following spring of that year, Kyle and Eric stopped talking altogether. And for almost a year, neither of them spoke a word to each other. It was only natural, in the eyes of those who could see the essential, for both to fall in love.<p>

Everything that happened in between sophomore year and the middle of junior year would eventually be chronicled in a small blue notebook, one that Eric would find buried among his possessions more than a decade from then. It was with a sense of nostalgia, a sense that he disregarded, that he would flip through the yellowing pages and reflect to himself that his most private, most unrequited love affair would remain with him until his dying day, a thought that occurred to him repeatedly, even fifteen years after Kyle's departure. But before those fifteen years, Eric knew bliss, and with an egocentric possessiveness that was his alone, Eric liked to think that neither he nor Kyle would ever forget their days spent together. No diamond ring or the toll of church bells could erase the impact of their memories. In his most private moments of reminiscence, he was sure that Kyle thought the same thoughts and felt the same emotions, a fate that for them there was no escape.

The realization of their dependency came too late, at a time when both became different people, grown up in their own ways, the same in all the wrong regards. It was the very sense of finality, the plunging thought of "meant to be," that beckoned the closing of what could have been a lifetime spent together.

Festering doubts and the calling of a pristine reputation inspired one to depart from the other, the other's pride and ego preventing crucial words—simple words—from being spoken, words that could have made Kyle stay. They were words whose importance lay neglected in the shadow of skepticism, the earth-shattering power of love diminished, reduced to a trifling fantasy.

Kyle and Eric would not be the first to lose happiness to this tragic misconception. And although in their later years, they found themselves content in their own affairs, both couldn't deny that their hearts would be filled with a distant longing each time either heard the sound of a train rumbling along its tracks.

* * *

><p>During a time of happiness, a time when the future still held promise of togetherness for both Kyle and Eric, Stan entered into a dimly lit cafe in downtown Denver, his leather jacket lightly dusted with snowflakes that began to evaporate as soon as they touched the warm air of the cafe vestibule. Looking around for the sight of a familiar face, Stan thought idly that it had been two years since he set foot on Colorado soil; his days had been filled, for twenty-four surreal months, with the sounds of seductive guitar riffs, enchanting acoustics, captivating bass lines, and hard-hitting drum solos; waves of narcotics, the heady scent of marijuana smoke inducing a kaleidoscope of psychedelic visions for him and God alone to see; making love the only way he knew how—brief, passionate, nameless, and soul-searing in its sheer detachment.<p>

At the age of nineteen, Stan felt as lost as ever when his eyes settled on Kenny, seated at the back of the cafe, looking ethereal and unearthly in his gold-silver pallor. All Stan could think was that he must have looked dull and ruined in comparison. He had changed very little, and even then, it wasn't in a good way.

"Hey, Ken," Stan greeted with a weak smile as he took a seat across from Kenny. His voice was hoarse, older, and tragic because he felt like a small child when even Kenny couldn't hide the disappointment in his silvery-blue eyes.

"Hey," Kenny responded. His tone hid his thoughts well, but his eyes held a stark shade of honesty, and Stan knew that nothing flattering lay beyond those crystal irises. "How's the band? I don't really get to follow you guys online, but I heard some pretty good things about New York."

Stan shrugged, feeling the constant strain setting in underneath the tender skin of his eyelids. He needed sleep. "It was ... great. Mecca of Indie is what they're calling it. Our sound. Seems like our band is really going places. Marcus is talking about a North American tour, so maybe you can catch us in a concert or something. You know, if it happens."

The casual nod and slight smile that Stan received told him that Kenny was being polite. Stan couldn't bring himself to feel offended; he didn't find the prospect of his own rising fame all too appealing either.

"Hear from Kyle lately?" Kenny asked, tone as even as still waters.

Stan grimaced. "Well, I've been busy—"

"Dipshit."

Startled, Stan looked up at Kenny; he realized that he'd had his head bowed, and for the past five minutes couldn't bring himself to make proper eye contact. He was caught between feeling guilty and defensive, but Kenny's frown made it clear to Stan that his frustration was transparent and unwelcome.

"Look, Kenny, we're leading separate lives now—me and Kyle talked about this, okay? He gets it. It's not like I haven't tried to keep in touch—crap just always keeps coming up—"

"Stan, would you listen to yourself?" Kenny hissed, eyes narrowed. "It would be a whole lot fucking simpler if you actually ENJOYED the things you did. For fucking years we've put up with your shitty attitude—and you know why Kyle was so willing to let you go like that? Because he thought you'd be following your dream."

Kenny frowned, more sorrowful than disappointed. Stan wanted to stutter out a feeble apology but held his tongue. "It wouldn't be so fucking bad if you were happy, Stan. But you know what you're doing? You're ditching your own ideals—no, forget about us for one fucking second, although that shouldn't be too goddamned hard.

"You're selling your soul for something that you don't even believe in. You're just too fucking proud to come home and admit that it's all really empty. And you have the bloody fucking balls to act like a _martyr _about it. Jesus-fucking-Christ, you'd think you'd have grown up by now."

"It's not all empty," Stan muttered under his breath. "I did it for the music."

"Yeah? And how's the sex, partying, drinking, and drugs? That part of the music, too?"

"Since when did you become such a self-righteous asshole?" Stan snapped. "I didn't come here to get chewed out, Kenny."

Kenny shook his head, eyes squeezed shut. "If not me, no one's going to tell you that you're wrong, Stan. You're wrong, and you're all alone." He pulled out a folded envelope from inside his jacket pocket and set it down on the table. Silvery-blue eyes looked at Stan with purpose. "If it's any consolation ... Kyle's really happy right now. When you see him, try not be an ass. For fuck's sake, clean yourself up."

Long after Kenny stood up to leave, Stan remained seated. He remained seated for a long time at the back of the cafe, a small fragile birthday card resting in his hands, the familiar penmanship of his best friend staring up at him with kindness and enthusiasm. At nineteen, Stan realized that he knew nothing and let silent tears fall.

* * *

><p>At seventeen, the humble awareness with which Stan acknowledged his youthful ignorance set the foundations for something abstract: in moments of awe-inspiring enlightenment—a moment so grand, so divine as to have power over one's life—the fact that one didn't know anything at all only served to make any sense of insight even more valuable. Water as to a man thirsty in the desert; sunlight as the Faroes in January; gold as to the man who never once possessed a thing in his life.<p>

One who is ignorant is never quite sure of what to do with profound, almost spiritual, realizations.

Stan, at seventeen, fancied himself an ignorant, lost soul, drifting in a sea of nobodies, in a town where God's wrath was sentimental mockery.

High school graduation brought to the surface of his mind a series of unhealthy doubts in a surging tidal wave of emotions, both sudden and devastating. Stan had a lifetime's worth of these, personal misgivings, mostly about himself and his capabilities. But at the time, a time when he was expected to go forth into the world and find purpose, Stan felt more lost than ever.

He could never recall how he came to sit behind the school gymnasium, nor did he acknowledge that the passing of time, in its haste, turned the late spring afternoon into evening. It was six o'clock when Kenny arrived, four hours after the graduation ceremony ended at Park County High.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Kenny knew better than to ask, but it didn't seem likely that he would be willing to skip rhetorical formalities.

Stan shrugged from where he sat on the concrete flooring, his back propped up against the cement wall of the gymnasium. "Didn't feel like being there."

"Kyle's looking for you."

"I already told him I wouldn't be going to the banquet."

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing. Everything. Like ... what do I do now?"

"What you love."

Kenny took a seat beside Stan. They didn't make eye contact.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do what you really want to do. Love gives you a sense of purpose. Doing it for money or prestige or some other bullshit ... it's a complete turn off. If there's one thing I've learned from this town—well, one useful thing—that would be it: Love's just one thing that'll stay true to you your whole life, even if other things change and rain shit on you."

"I never knew you could be so deep."

Kenny didn't respond. Stan continued without pause.

"I've always done everything with you guys."

Sensing the implicit meaning, Kenny smiled, knowing exactly what Stan meant.

"That's actually really touching. But you'll find your way. We both will."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that we can handle ourselves, Stan. You and me, we're gonna make something of ourselves, but we can do it our own way. Kyle and Cartman are a different story. They'll always need each other."

Kenny sighed, slouching up against the gymnasium wall, his spine curving uncomfortably close to the ground.

"It's about time I said it. I think we've both known it for a while, Stan. Those two … they've got it made. By their very own goddamned definition."

Stan refused to take any of Kenny's words with sobriety. He shrugged it all off.

"I think I'll be a rock star."

That, also, he didn't take seriously at all.

* * *

><p><em>End Introduction<em>

* * *

><p>201207/09

A/N: -dodges rotten fruit- Oh god please don't hurt me. I assure you, this update was made with the very best of intentions.

So I've decided to include the novella "A Brief Manner of Speech" into what was supposed to be its stand-alone sequel "The Quiet Plains". Long story short, I felt that making the sequel a stand-alone would have taken away much of the weight in certain relationships, and a lot of the conflict in "The Quiet Plains" wouldn't have felt as justified.

So I thought, "Hey, why not just put it together in one chaptered story?" That way, new readers won't have to feel like they need to jump between two different stories, but previous readers can feel like they've just picked up where they left off.

That being said, I'm working very hard with writing and may you patient, lovely people enjoy what I have in store. Until then, all I can say is that I'm grateful for all the support and patience :)

Next update will be in the following week!


	2. Interlude: Now & Then

The Quiet Plains

_Interlude_

_"Now & Then"_

* * *

><p>II. Then<p>

Stan Marsh was fifteen years old. He sat by his bedroom window where the September afternoon lay outside, quiet and sleepy just behind dirty glass. The acoustic guitar perched in his lap was silent, its strings anticipating the push-pull, touch-and-go of his expert strumming.

Blue eyes and fidgeting fingers reflected his anxiety.

Kenny, from where he sat on Stan's bed, sighed.

"C'mon, man. I really wanna hear it."

If one were to count, that would have been the fifth time Kenny said the exact same words within the span of an hour.

Grunting, Stan looked down at the notebook opened before him on his desk. Resigning in a rush of words, he began to explain the song he had in mind.

"Fine."

As he spoke his eyes focused downward, passing over the blue ink scrawled in his notebook pages. Kenny couldn't gauge much from looking at his eyes, but he knew enough from Stan's voice—knew enough about Stan to understand that this was his soul.

"Really, it's just about two people. They're so different from each other, but at the same time, they feel the compelling need to be around one another. They're both selfish pricks and despite the fact that they do care for each other, their selfishness keeps them from growing … from changing.

"So they can't improve. Not while they're stuck with each other. Not while they're stuck being selfish people. So something's gotta give. Otherwise, they're both just … running around in circles.

"Either one of them has to change, to try something new because routine isn't working anymore. That's the only way they can ever hope to be happy. Really, truly happy."

Kenny nodded solemnly, the recognition in his eyes faint.

Abruptly, Stan strummed a series of chords and began to sing.

_April is the cruellest month._

_But hey, what do I know?_

_She's got you talking it in circles._

_Kid, you're not heading anywhere._

_You're still stuck in Topsy-Turvy Town._

_The bandwagon, she's sailed,_

_And all the second chances with her._

They were sophomores then. Just a year ago.

* * *

><p>I. Now<p>

_(Late April, Junior Year)_

Eric Cartman was sixteen years old.

A blow to his stomach knocked the air clear from his lungs, sending him reeling into the dirt. His back hit the ground. The violent burst of light behind his eyelids amplified the pain that shot through his body like lightning. The throbbing lingered like a burn.

Eric squinted his eyes open past the excruciating sensation that tore through him. All he could see was an endless expanse of bright blue above him.

Sharp noises fired off, seeming distant in the background.

Eric groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

The sharp noises persisted. He couldn't make out what they were saying.

A high-pitched frequency buzzed in his cloudy mind, stubborn like fuzzy static. It made him deaf. His perception of his surroundings turned into foggy white noise in his muddled brain.

He was eerily aware of just how fast his heart was beating. He could feel the pulse-dilate-pulse of his veins beneath the surface of his skin.

Everything was painful.

"Do you UNDERSTAND?"

The voice was deafening. Eric felt like it would shatter his skull.

"HEY, I'm talking to you!"

A hard kick was aimed at his side.

Eric felt a cry of pain rip itself from his throat. He bit his lip, resisting a groan.

"Understand WHAT, asshole?" he screamed back.

The exertion made his brain explode in a kaleidoscope of blinding colors that didn't exist outside the back of his eyelids.

"I don't think you get it."

The sunlight dimmed. Eric felt someone standing over him.

The ear-splitting frequency was back.

Eric was dimly aware, above the pain, that the figure standing over him had grabbed his hair. His head was lifted off the ground with a vicious pull.

Eric let out a garbled scream.

"Are you going to tell anyone what you saw?" the older, stronger boy snarled, mere inches away from his face.

Eric grunted, squinting an eye open. Past the blinding sunlight, he could make out the face of Randall Lee. Brown eyes were twisted with rage.

Eric recognized fear. He felt it rather than saw it.

Randall's grip was shaky. His screams were delirious, unstable.

It lit a fire in Eric's blood.

The pain didn't matter anymore. The palpable spark of terror ignited Eric's senses, sent a quiver of delight running up his spine, buzzing like a chilling high at the back of his skull. Eric could taste Randall losing his composure. The tone of his voice was frantic, the look in his furious eyes manic in desperation.

Eric hadn't lost.

"You're one hell of a raging pussy, Randall," Eric spat. "You can expect me not to rat on your sorry ass when they nail me into my fucking coffin."

"That can be arranged!"

Randall's voice trembled. His words were a frenzied warning rather than the grim promise he meant them to be.

Eric laughed. His voice was cold.

"C'mon, faggot. At least try to convince me."

That earned Eric a hard kick from one of Randall's lackeys.

The blows kept coming. A lightning bolt of pain threatened to split his skull open when a powerful kick at his jaw sent his face whipping into the ground.

Eric tasted blood.

Randall was screaming.

Eric couldn't understand any of the hysterical cries, but he knew Randall was scared out of his mind. All sound became distorted in his ears. Words were jumbled.

Keep get—Someone—Oh God.

Why did you—Someone—Someone—

He's going to—

—Fuck—

We're all—

—He's going to—

Keep get—Fuck.

His vision went black.

And then there was no sound at all.

His thoughts were jumbled. Pictures flew past his mind's eye, like a train that seemed to run in five different directions all at once.

The locker room in the gymnasium—it had blue and yellow tiles on the wall.

A train car numbered 32 ran in the opposite direction.

The wood of a cabin floor, rotting and old, gave way underneath approaching footsteps.

Walking through the park late at night, he could make out figures in the distance.

Eric was running through the school parking lot. _C'mon, catch up._

He sat alone on a swing set, a warm sweater draped around his body, the familiar scent of the thick garment even warmer.

Suddenly the visions stilled.

Eric was aware that he stood in a vast field of rye. Cloudy gold stretched as far as the eye could see. Bright royal blue floated like a rich velvet blanket overhead. Blue and gold touched and blended in the soft hazy line of the horizon.

Eric took a step forward. His feet made no sound. There was absolutely nothing to be heard. Not the wind, not the rustling of the rye as he touched but didn't feel the golden stems with his fingers. There was only stillness.

He kept walking.

In the distance he saw a boy standing alone.

He knew him.

Eric approached.

The boy had his back turned. Eric couldn't see his face. What was his name? Eric was sure that he knew his name. But what was it? He tried calling out, but no sound came from his mouth. Eric kept walking towards the boy. Eric knew him. He was sure of it. So why couldn't he remember his name? He felt like he needed to remember. It was an important name.

Eric was behind the boy.

He reached out and touched his shoulder.

The boy was gone.

Eric was alone in the golden field.

He was sad. He knew it rather than felt it. He knew that if he remembered, the boy wouldn't have left.

—UP.

Eric coughed. Pain shot into his jaw. He groaned and tried to keep his head still.

"It's NOT mine, I swear—"

"—we just found him like that—"

"—said it's NOT MINE. My father will hear about this!"

The back lot of the school gymnasium was crawling with people. Teachers were gathered around Randall Lee and his posse of five. The resident constable and a few others from law enforcement had the boys restrained, ready to cart them off down to North Park County Station.

Constable Stiles, a tall middle-aged balding man, made his way over to where an ambulance was parked. He crouched over Eric as the paramedics attended to him.

"Can you hear me, son?"

His voice was warm, commanding, loud.

Eric groaned.

"Fuck."

"They'll be taking you down to the hospital, Eric. I've called your mom and she's on her way."

Eric's vision went black.

* * *

><p>As soon as his mother exited the sterile-white hospital room, Eric pulled out his iPhone. Well aware of the hushed conversation just beyond the stark walls and the limited amount of time he had before the painkillers finally gripped him in dreamless sleep, Eric punched in a number. It was one he knew well from memory.<p>

This was a call that couldn't be traced. There would be no record of it. As soon as he hung up, Eric knew that whatever words were exchanged would remain between him and his associate. Between them and them alone.

Eric held up the device to his ear, counting down the seconds as he anxiously waited for his call to be answered.

_Don't fall asleep. You've been out for five hours. That's plenty of time for shit to go wrong. Damage control. Damage control._

The ringing ceased and the line cleared. Eric heard a familiar voice greet him through the receiver.

Eric's throat was dry. His voice was hoarse. It hurt to talk.

"I don't have time for excuses right now."

His throat persisted past the discomfort. The more time Eric wasted, the more he was putting on the line.

"You can tell me all about your astounding fuck ups some other day. All you need to know is that I'm in the hospital and I can't do shit.

"So here's what you're gonna do: place a call to North Park Police Station. Ask for Randall Lee. If he's being the little prick that he is, I'm pretty sure he hasn't opened his jackass mouth without getting a lawyer first. But when he does talk, tell him to stick to this version of the story: I walked by and thought that they were doing some kind of deal behind the gym. They freaked and then jumped me without asking questions."

Eric took a deep, laboured breath. His vision was getting fuzzy, his thoughts less coherent.

"This benefits all of us. If the truth gets out, he's not the only one who's gonna land into a whole pile of shit."

Without another word, Eric ended the call.

As his phone beeped, the screen flashing red within less than a second, Eric closed his eyes and faded off into dreamless sleep. The call history was wiped clean.

* * *

><p>II. Then<p>

_(Early December, Sophomore Year)_

For a week after the Jeremy incident, Kyle and Eric watched the train from the front steps of the Cartman house.

On the third day since the incident, neither of them spoke a word as they made their way around the neighborhood to Eric's house from the bus stop.

They sat side by side on the front steps. They kept their tense silence, watching as their mark sped by on rusty railroad tracks.

After the rumbling of the train faded into the distance, Eric abruptly stood from where he sat next to Kyle. Without a word or a glance, he wrenched open the front door to his house, stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him.

Kyle frowned as he stared at the wood of the door. Glaring, he scoffed, stood, and made his way home without addressing it.

This became the immediate change in the routine of their "train spotting." They would watch the train speed by without speaking, Eric would get up as soon as the train faded away, sound and image gone, then he would wordlessly disappear inside his house with a slam of his front door and Kyle would walk away in a huff.

There were no phone calls that week, but Kyle took to sending Eric pictures of his completed homework in an act that seemed both defeated and weary. He was nothing if not a creature of habit.

When two weeks passed and the routine in their train spotting had yet to improve, Kyle decided to take initiative.

It was a Wednesday afternoon in December when Kyle settled on a tentative game plan, one that simply entailed for him to break the silence first.

Stepping off the bus after a day of school, Kyle bid Stan and Kenny a curt goodbye as he fell into step beside Eric. For the first time in two weeks, he was grateful for the silence. It allowed him to mull over his thoughts, to formulate a means to bridge the gap that had somehow taken over between them.

They watched the train from the front steps of Eric's house. Silence reigned supreme yet again, far more deafening than the rumbling of the train against the railroad tracks as it approached, roaring with speed. Like all the other afternoons, as soon as the sound of the train faded into the distance, Eric stood abruptly and wrenched open the door to his house.

Fumbling to catch him, Kyle shot up to stand, a waterfall of words sitting at the cliff's edge of his tongue. At the forefront of that torrent was a simple request: "Fuck, man. Talk to me."

Kyle almost bumped into Eric in his haste to stand. Instead of stepping inside and slamming the door shut, Eric whipped around from where he held the door open. He levelled Kyle with a firm gaze.

"Gonna play a round of 'Eat Them!' with me, or are you just gonna stand around and be a Jew?"

Caught off guard, Kyle's face broke out into a grin. It took him a few seconds to grab a hold of enough composure to fight off his smile.

"I'm grounded, Cartman."

"So stay half an hour. Or fuck off. Whatever."

Kyle didn't lose another second standing outside. In the next few moments, he was upstairs in Eric's room where they spent the next hour destroying urban civilization with leviathan aliens on the PS3.

That afternoon marked the first of many throughout that year when slowly but surely Kyle and Eric decided to let each other in.

But as the month of April was about to show them, a simple life was a far off dream and rekindling their broken friendship after a year of not speaking would be not be as easy as picking up where they left off. Especially since "where they left off" wasn't such a great place to begin with.

* * *

><p>I. Now<p>

_(Late April, Junior Year)_

"You have a visitor, Eric."

Eric glanced at the nurse who poked her head into his hospital room.

"Do they have, I dunno, a _present_ or something? Flowers or some shit?"

"Well … I don't think—"

Eric raised a brow, frowning with condescension. "Then tell them to fuck off."

"I bring the present of good will and important news, fat boy. I know what you're thinking, 'Of _course_ that's all he could afford.'"

A tall young boy stepped into the room. He was dressed in tattered blue jeans, beat up sneakers, and an orange parka—hood down—that looked about three sizes too big on his lanky frame. His blond hair gleamed underneath the fluorescent lamps overhead. Twinkling blue eyes met Eric's gaze with a challenge.

Eric mustered a scowl on his bruised face.

"Kenny," he hissed underneath his breath.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch just yet," Kenny muttered. He gave the nurse an easy smile as she left them alone. As soon as the door shut behind her, he turned to Eric with a controlled expression that foreshadowed a grim confrontation.

"Before I tell you the news," Kenny began as he approached the bed, "do you mind telling me what the _fuck_ happened out there?"


	3. Chapter I: Now

The Quiet Plains

* * *

><p>Chapter I. Now<p>

_(Late April, Junior Year)_

Eric didn't miss a beat. Even if the grand pause in this entire theatrical gong show lasted a whole year.

"Well, Kenny," Eric began, taking care to draw out every syllable. He could see that the apparent and deliberate slowness made Kenny anxious. The poor piece of shit looked antsy as fuck. "As you can probably see—but, hell, I don't wanna assume what poor people can or can't do with their gimp genetics—"

Kenny flipped him off. Old habits died hard. "Cut the crap. As heartfelt as this reunion is, you and I literally don't have any time to waste. Tell me what the fuck went down."

"Oh, for fuck's sake—don't _tell_ me you haven't already heard," Eric spat. "I didn't decide to live in a shithole mountain town because the rumour mill was idle. See, Randall and his cuntbag friends decided it would be a _riot_ to beat the ever loving shit out of me. What the hell else does this look like to you?" He gestured stiffly to his broken body. The effort made him wince.

Eric had half a mind to call for a nurse and tell Kenny to get the hell out, until he noticed how Kenny was standing in the way of the door. His shoulders were in a taught line, the tension pulling on every other muscle in his body, extending all the way to his eyes. The silvery blue of his glare was irate. But there was an underlying sense of haste and panic in the way he looked at Eric's current state.

Before Kenny could respond, Eric scoffed and turned away to look out his window. "Please fucking tell me that the town gossip isn't too far off the mark. The last thing I wanna deal with when I get out is some rumour about me _dropping the soap_ and Randall taking advantage—"

"_Jesus_," Kenny hissed. "That's not it at all. Fuck, Cartman ... this is serious." He paused, his face taking on a pained expression. "No one knows what actually happened, alright? But everyone's wondering."

Kenny's implied question was loud and clear. But Eric wasn't feeling generous enough to indulge him. Not right now. Not when he, of all people, didn't know what was transpiring on the other side of town. Randall wouldn't talk. None of them would. Neither would Eric. It was better for all of them that way.

In certain circumstances, the less you spoke the lesser the likelihood of getting caught in a place you shouldn't be.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Kenny," Eric grumbled. "I walked by them behind the gym on my way to the parking lot. They must've been doing something shady, because the moment they saw me they freaked. Several hours later, here I am. But you know all of that already."

Eric didn't look at Kenny. His gaze was transfixed on the nighttime scenery outside his window. Suburbia lit up the South Park landscape like a pathetic dust of stars swallowed by city lights. It was all so small and fragile. Was Kenny buying it? Of course he was. He had to. There was not enough out there to believe otherwise. Eric was sure.

Eric heard a small, breathy chuckle from where Kenny stood. Almost against his will, Eric pulled his gaze away from the window.

Kenny held his head in his hands, his shoulders twitching from silent laughter. Without lifting his gaze, body stilling suddenly, Kenny whispered loud enough for Eric to hear, "It's funny ... how we haven't talked for a year ... and now this is how it all comes back." He let out a hoarse guffaw. "When I saw them driving Randall to the police station ... I thought you were dead."

Eric couldn't tell when he started holding his breath.

"I hadn't talked to you for a year—a whole entire year, I pretended like you didn't matter anymore. I just ... didn't care, after what you did—what you did to K—" Kenny stopped himself.

Eric grit his teeth, shutting his eyes tight. It was a small relief to know that Kenny's eyes weren't on him.

Kenny sucked in a breath of air. "I thought I didn't care anymore. Really, Cartman. After all that, I didn't think I had it in me to give a shit. It was all so fucking stupid and now ..." He laughed again, a hysterical high-pitched sound. Blue eyes lifted to level Eric with a knowing, heavy gaze. "Now I'm here in front of you, and I remember. I remember—"

Eric gripped the white sheets tightly in his bruised fingers.

Kenny took a step forward, his hair illuminated further in a halo of fluorescent light. "I grew up with you, Eric. I know you're a manipulative son of a whore."

If not his words, then it was something in Kenny's eyes that made Eric think twice about his chance at succeeding with his charade.

Kenny didn't get any closer. He simply stood a step away from the door, his face still. His eyes were sad and angry, the one thing that seemed to bridge a little bit of the distance between them. It brought Eric uncomfortably close.

"You might want to practice that lie a little bit more," Kenny said, his voice strained. "Even if it worked on the constable and your mom, it's not gonna work on me, and it sure as hell won't work on Kyle."

The name felt like a cold slap against his face.

Eric's heart dropped.

Seeing Eric's complexion go white, Kenny sneered, almost cruelly.

"That's right—he's coming."

* * *

><p>It was 8:26 pm and Stan was late.<p>

Kyle glanced up from where he was parked in the Marsh driveway. Stan's bedroom window was bright, sharp and harsh in contrast to the darkness that the sunset brought. The street lamps were coming to life and the last rays of sunlight were starting to fade. Kyle hated idling in his car.

"I said ten minutes ..." Kyle muttered, running his hands over the steering wheel. "Damn it, Stan. Hurry up."

Movement from inside the house caught Kyle's eye. He glanced up and saw Stan waving from the window. He had his hand up, fingers stretched out. _Five minutes_, he mouthed at Kyle and disappeared within his room, beyond sight.

Frowning, Kyle felt the urge to drive away without him. But he decided to wait a little longer.

* * *

><p>"What ... what the hell do you mean he's coming."<p>

Eric's breathing was ragged. He felt nauseous.

No. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Not now. Not after a year of silence.

"H-he's supposed to be in Denver." Eric swallowed past the lump in his throat. "He has a tournament. W-what the hell's he doing—Kenny, _don't fuck around with me!_" He didn't mean to yell. But none of this was supposed to be happening.

Kenny's shrug was unsympathetic. "Like you said—a mountain town ain't a mountain town if it doesn't have an efficient rumour mill."

Eric felt like vomiting. He was abruptly made aware of how broken and weak he looked in his current state.

Kenny started speaking faster. Eric didn't like that. He glanced at the clock above the door and willed it to stop ticking so loud.

"Someone on the basketball team told him." Kenny's tone became low and hushed. "He drove to South Park as soon as he could. He made it within the town proper in under five hours. He's on his way now. But—"

Eric hated Kenny. He hated him.

"I asked Stan to stall. And he'll keep stalling unless you tell me the fucking truth."

* * *

><p>It was 8:32 and Stan had yet to make another appearance.<p>

Kyle scowled. He grabbed his phone from out of his jacket pocket, hitting the _Call_ button as soon as Stan's name showed up on his contacts list.

"Pick up ..." he muttered. He was still idling. What a waste of gas. The drive from Denver was bad enough. "For fuck's sake, Stan. Visiting hours are only until nine. What the hell is taking so long?"

After three rings, Stan's voice finally came on the line. "Hey, dude—sorry it's taking so long. I'll be out soon, I just gotta—"

"We don't have a lot of time, Stan." Kyle didn't snap, but his voice was on edge and he knew it. There was no need to get angry, not at Stan. He wasn't angry at Stan. "Just hurry up, okay? I'm tight on gas these days—I've had the car running for a while ..."

"Geez ... I'm real sorry, dude. I'll hurry it up."

The phone beeped and Stan's voice was gone.

Kyle dropped his phone in a cup holder and let his head fall back. He couldn't stand waiting. He had to know for himself. He had to see what the hell went so wrong.

* * *

><p>"Why the HELL are you even here."<p>

He was shouting now. Eric was panicking. He wasn't ready.

Kenny stared blankly at him. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he spoke slowly, "I told you, right? I thought you were dead."

"Oh, fuck, _yes_," Eric laughed harshly. "You were so concerned that you came running. Well, I'm alive, _dipshit_. Now stop fucking around with me. _You're_ the one who said we didn't have time for any of this."

"All I really had to say," Kenny said with a cold smile, "was that Kyle is on his way. That's all it took to rile you up." He took a few steps closer, now hovering over Eric, making him painfully aware of his helplessness. "If there's anything that gets you worked up, it's Kyle. You know that poker face you've always got?"

Eric glared, clenching his jaw. How satisfying it would be to punch Kenny right in his straight, pointed nose.

"It falls apart when Kyle comes into the picture."

Eric wanted nothing more than to strike Kenny and break his shiteating grin.

"And I know all of this." Kenny's voice was down to a sinister whisper. "You know what that gives me?"

Eric wanted to spit in his face.

Kenny smiled.

"It gives me leverage."

* * *

><p>Kyle resisted the urge to gun the accelerator. They were still in the suburbs. The exit to the town's main road seemed lost in the twist and turn of cul-de-sacs and circling streets. It all seemed so far away.<p>

Stan plugged his phone into the stereo and started playing ambient trance. The melodic sounds were supposed to be relaxing.

Kyle knew how tense he was. He was just waiting for Stan to make mention of it. They were both oddly silent and it bothered Kyle. Something about the stillness made him feel out of the loop.

"Stan," Kyle started, feeling his throat tighten. "Do you ... do you know ..."

Why was he so nervous?

Stan turned to look at Kyle. His eyes appeared midnight blue in the darkness, oddly expressionless. "Do I know what happened? No. No one does. From what I heard, Randall and his friends aren't talking. Not yet, anyway."

Kyle's lips tightened into a grimace. "No ... I meant—Stan." He hadn't planned to say so much on the drive there. There was no plan at all. From the moment he got into his car that afternoon, Kyle had only one thing on his mind. "Dude ... this is just ... I don't know why this is so hard for me right now. Talking, I mean."

Stan glanced away.

Kyle slowed as a red light came on at an intersection. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"What are you trying to say, Kyle?" Stan asked, his voice soft and quiet. He had asked no questions when Kyle called him in a panic only a few hours earlier. Stan simply complied with the rapid-fire, frenzied interrogation. Most questions were answered with "I don't know," and that was the truth. No one knew why Eric was in the hospital while Randall and his friends were still at the police station.

There was a long pause before Kyle spoke again.

"What I'm trying to say ..." Kyle murmured, almost to himself. It was so hard to string words together. "Jesus, dude." He laughed and it sounded sheepish. "I mean ... you must think I've gone insane."

Kyle didn't notice, but Stan stiffened in his seat, glancing anxiously at the stop light.

"It's been a year, Stan."

If only the red light lasted longer. But they were moving again.

Stan frowned, watching as they flew past open fields, faster now that they turned into the main road. "Yeah ... I didn't wanna ask. I really ... didn't want to." It was also hard for him to talk about it. "But I understand why you would feel bad."

Kyle felt a lump rising in his throat.

"Nothing was ever your fault, Kyle. Cartman is—he's fine, from what I heard. He should be out of the hospital in a few days. And you also have a tournament back in Denver ..."

"Oddly enough, I don't really give a shit about that right now." Kyle's voice was breathy. He sounded defeated.

Stan was ready to leave it at that, but Kyle pressed on. They were picking up speed.

"You know the first thing that came to my mind when I got the news? I thought to myself ... damn, this entire year was pointless." Kyle laughed and he sounded so sad through the upturn of his lips. "Suddenly, it all seems so petty. So ... senseless. I mean ... at that point, I couldn't even remember why I stopped talking to Cartman. That stopped mattering when I thought he was ..."

Kyle swallowed. His throat felt tight.

"God, Stan ..." he whispered, the sound of his voice so taut, as if he was about to break. "I just got into my car and I didn't care anymore ... maybe my head was just filled with misplaced nostalgia, but on the way over here, the bad stuff didn't seem so awful anymore."

Stan felt like shouting. He didn't understand how he could sit so still in the passenger seat as he listened to all of this.

"I kept thinking ..." Kyle sounded like he was about to cry. "I kept thinking about the last words I ever said to him."

The lights of downtown Park County came up as they rose atop the curve of a hill.

"I couldn't bear it, Stan."

Kyle choked back the shaky watery tone of his voice.

"I thought he was dead and I hated myself for being too proud."

* * *

><p>"The truth, Cartman." Kenny sounded so bitter. "You know how I'm sure that you're lying?"<p>

Eric didn't respond. He didn't need to because Kenny kept talking anyway. But neither did he want to know about the gaping hole that Kenny supposedly saw through his story.

"It's because you've been so awfully quiet about all of this. So perfectly ... passive." Kenny's eyes were piercing and cold. "That's not at all like you, fat boy. The you I know would have taken advantage of the ruckus."

Cold calculation was _his_ game, Eric thought malevolently. Kenny had no place in all of this.

"The you I know ..." Kenny whispered, sitting down at the edge of the bed. "The Cartman I know and so lovingly hate would have seen to it that Randall never breathed an ounce of fresh Colorado air as long as he lived."

Kenny would never win against Eric in his own game. Eric wouldn't allow it.

"So tell me, Cartman ..."

Kenny's hands were balled into fists and for a moment Eric thought another injury was coming his way.

"Tell me why you're protecting them."

That wasn't what he expected. Eric didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. He should have anticipated Kenny's guess, but his mind was in a frenzy over K—

"Protecting ..?" Eric stared at Kenny. The curtains were up now. He had to be convincing. "The hell—what the _fuck_ do you mean, _protecting_?" His voice rose in a crescendo of wrath. "Did that dirt poor brain of yours break from snorting too much crack? You tell me, Kenny," Eric sneered, "what about protecting Randall and his parade of faggots would ever be beneficial to me?"

Kenny's fists looked ready to fly. "You—that's why I'm HERE. I'm asking you—"

"A dumb fucking question," Eric spat. "You keep going on and on about the 'truth.' Well, here's the fucking truth: I don't know jack shit about why they jumped me the way they did. I know about as much as you do—God help me."

Kenny was glaring, his face contorted in an expression of bewildered frustration. "You're lying."

"For all fuck's sake." Eric was feeling the strain of all his injuries. He wanted Kenny out of the room. The mental gymnastics were wasting his energy. Eric had to be prepared but Kenny's relentless hounding was wearing him out. All the anger was taking its toll.

Eric took a deep breath. He then smiled a mocking smile.

"You want a play by play of events? Well, if that'll get you out of my room faster, then why the fuck not, right? See, at around five o'clock yesterday afternoon, I was making my way out of the school and decided to take a shortcut through the gym. I wasn't about to make that pain in the ass walk through the school entrance. But see, Kenny, on my way out the fire exit, I saw Randall and his band of pussies making their way towards the locker rooms by the football field. You know how I always said that guy was shady as all fuck? Well, I wasn't about to miss out on proof of my absolute _rightness_. So I followed them."

Eric licked his cracked lips. He was short of breath now.

"They went into the boys locker rooms and sure enough, Randall started handling little ... little baggies." Eric grinned, watching as Kenny's resolve turned brittle. "But fuck if I care about some drug deal, right? Seen worse shit go down than that. I decided to leave them to it, really save the blackmail for a more opportune moment. But ... I guess one of the guys saw me, because next thing I know I'm being tackled against the tile wall.

"I wrestled my way out of there long enough to run outside. I got as far as the parking lot before Randall caught up to me."

The hesitation and doubts in Kenny's eyes were palpable in his silence. Victory tasted sweet.

"Randall's pretty fucking desperate at this point, because he doesn't even bother with small talk. He starts with the beating, gets right to the point." Eric's smile turned cold. "I mean, what would his poor lawyer father do if he found out that his precious baby faggot was dealing drugs? It would be a real shame if Randall couldn't play football for some ivy league college, all because of a drug record, right?

"Randall's not too bright, you see. Battery and assault, right on top of drug possession? Goddamn, that kid's lucky he's got the biceps of Thor because that's the only thing he's got going for him. He just starts panicking, and the more he panics, the more he whales on me. Some of his friends join in. But then ... it starts looking pretty bad for me.

"It must have. All I remember is a wicked fucking pain against my jaw and I'm out like a light. I thought I heard Randall screaming, freaking out. A couple hours later, I wake up attached to this IV drip." Eric gestured around him. "And lots of beeping machines ... you'd think I was dying and they'd put me on life support. But as you can see, Kenny," he turned to look at the ever familiar face by the end of his bed, "I'm alive and well, save for a few broken ribs and a shit ton of internal bleeding. I am fucking _impressive_.

"But mark my words."

The room seemed to grow colder. Kenny's face was pale with no hint of the confidence he had before.

"When I get out of here, Randall Lee better hope they send him somewhere pretty fucking far. Because nothing short of concrete walls and electric fences will keep me from destroying his life.

"How's that for truth, Kenny?"

* * *

><p>Kyle felt the difference in air pressure as he crossed the threshold of the automatic doors and walked into the hospital lobby. Were his steps too rushed? He was straining to keep his pace even with Stan.<p>

Stan had been calm throughout the day. It was both comforting and unnerving to see his best friend resolutely held together while Kyle felt like he was unravelling. He wanted more control, but his mind was rushing, thinking up a million things to say, none of which seemed good enough after a year of silence.

Kyle wanted to speak to who he was a year ago and ask, "Did you ever have any intention of breaking the silence eventually?"

He knew he wouldn't find an answer, and maybe that wasn't important any longer. Too much time had passed. And just a few hours earlier, fear and guilt made him see what an entire year of feeling hollow couldn't do.

"Eric Cartman?" the receptionist at the desk repeated after Kyle and Stan told her who they would be visiting. "You boys are here pretty late. There are only ten minutes left for visitors." She input a few keys on her keyboard and glanced at the computer screen on her desk. "Room 332," she said, smiling up at them. "Make it quick."

No one else was on the elevator as Stan and Kyle made the short ascent.

In the sterile metal compartment, the silence took on a thick tension that made the walls seem way too close. Kyle thought that he should have taken the stairs.

"What are you gonna say?"

Kyle glanced up, startled by Stan's question. The elevator ride was almost over. He had no idea.

Nothing seemed good enough.

They were already on the third floor. The doors slid open with a hint of a rattling scrape and both boys stepped out onto the quiet hallway. Wordlessly, they headed to the direction of room 332.

Kyle felt like his heart was about to jump into his throat. He had no idea what to say, but he couldn't get to the room fast enough. He told himself that if Stan wasn't there, he would have broken out into a sprint. Fuck knowing what to say. He didn't have to say anything. Words wouldn't do—how many times were his words swallowed by his pride?

Long enough to let this last an entire year, Kyle thought bitterly.

Besides, what would be the point? Kyle knew through instinct that anything he came up with would prove futile. When he walked into that hospital room and met Eric's gaze for the first time in so long, no amount of planning would move him to speak. And there was the matter of Eric's response. Did he know they were coming? No, Kyle told no one but Stan.

Perhaps, Kyle thought, that was a little unfair.

They were in front of the room. The black numbers 332 were on a sign placed next to the door.

Kyle caught Stan's concerned look. He felt calm all of a sudden.

Neither of them reached for the door handle.

"Don't you think ... this might be a little unfair?" Kyle said with a soft chuckle, not quite meeting Stan's gaze. "I mean ... I've had all this time to think about stuff to say, and Cartman doesn't suspect a thing. It feels like I have an advantage or something."

Stan sighed. "But did you figure out what you're going to say? I asked you earlier and you didn't say anything."

Kyle glanced at the door. In that moment, he almost wished he could see through it. What would he discover?

"No, Stan."

Kyle reached forward and felt the cold metal of the door handle against his fingertips.

"I have no clue."

Stan saw that Kyle's fingers were paler than usual, trembling against the door handle. He paused before turning to walk down the hallway, back the way they came.

"I'll let you see him first," Stan said. He didn't watch for Kyle's expression. He saw some benches and decided to take a seat and wait for Kyle there.

When he turned back to look, Kyle had already gone into the room.

* * *

><p>Leaning against the railing of the balcony, Kenny felt the cool night breeze fluttering against his beat up parka. Smoking out here was probably a bad idea, but no other hospital doors along the floor were open. Besides, it wasn't like he'd be here long. He just needed to cool down and relax with a cigarette.<p>

He ran his hands through his pale hair. Kenny lifted his fingers up to his face and realized he was shaking. He took a drag to steady himself.

There was still something about Eric's story that he didn't quite believe. But what else was there to figure out? What he said made sense.

Kenny blew out one last puff of smoke and let his cigarette fall to the floor. The embers died beneath the soles of his dirty sneakers.

It occurred to Kenny that the sense of unease he felt was due to long standing and innate distrust. He instinctively questioned anything Eric said. But gut feeling was nothing to go by. He had little reason to be suspicious. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Randall Lee was known to have anger issues. It made sense that he'd fly off the handle before asking questions or resorting to diplomacy. Still ...

Kenny rubbed his palms against his face.

There was no time to mull it over on Eric's balcony. He needed to get out of the hospital. Kenny turned around and was about to slide the glass door open when the sight inside the room made him scramble out of view.

Kyle sat on the edge of the bed, his arms around Eric.

Kenny couldn't see Eric's face, but he could see plain as day that Kyle was crying.


End file.
